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writefightandflightclub · 1 year ago

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Ride or Die (Santiago “Pope” Garcia x fem!reader): Chapter Eleven (of 11 - COMPLETED SERIES)

Series summary: Together, you and Santiago have been “soldiers” then “friends” then “lovers”; but will you ever figure out what comes next, especially when Santiago can’t (or won’t) stop running?

Genre: a LOT of angst, (some) smut, best friends to… lovers?

Warnings: see collated series warnings, here.

Series info: this is a COMPLETED SERIES. All chapters are written and queued. Posting schedule is here (includes series master list).

Author’s note: THIS IS THE FINAL CHAPTER YOU GUYSSSSSS. I'm emotional!

It has been a journey. As always, I would be super grateful for any comments / reblogs / asks you may wish to send. ILYSM!

Word count: 6.4k for this part.

Weeks pass following the sojourn at the beach house, and you return to your new, blooming life. The strange, suffusing peace you’d felt when you and Santiago finally said your farewells - in more than words - has faded, a barbed tension instead taking root. The sense of resolution has all too quickly transitioned towards sleepless nights. To worrying about how the Lorea job will pan out, and whether Santiago and your other, dear squad mates will make it out unscathed - if at all.

Your usual pleasures and distractions are little comfort, and it is worst when you are alone. You don’t even have the other dumbasses to lean on, the rub of all of them being gone at once hard to take.

The nights are when you worry most intensely. When the world folds in on itself, the outside dark and the interior of your own thoughts all you have to rattle around in. Your house has never felt more empty to you, in fact, than in these moments. Most of all though, it feels empty without him; even though he’s never set foot in it. Your hard-won sanctuary feels, with each revolution of the clock, more and more like a collection of rooms and corridors boxing you in, and less and less like it had ever held the potential to feel like safety.

Anything that you do in attempts to quell this gnawing worry only makes the hole inside you grow more and more apparent. The more you tend your porch planters, the more friends you have over for game day, the more you try to tell yourself that you have everything you need, right here? The further from the truth it all feels.

The truth, in this moment, is that you’d burn down the entirety of this new life you’ve built if it would get him back safe. Back home safe. And it only makes you more certain that there is no “home” without him. No true feeling of sanctuary or peace while he is in danger.

The more time that passes too, the more your worries for the mission eat away at you. Some nights, you find yourself sitting bolt upright in bed, the damp sheets tangled constrictively around your heat-tacky skin. Heart thudding hard in the roll cage of your chest. In these moments, that’s when you come closest to abandoning your new life entirely. To hastily stuffing a rucksack and jumping on the next plane to Colombia or Brazil, for all the damn good it would do.

But you can’t do that. You can’t let yourself be dragged back into his world of danger.

You’d gotten out, and wasn’t that the point? To stay out?

You know it’s for the best. Best for you.

Still… there is something which really scares you about this mission. You can’t shake the sense they won’t come back quite the same after this. Can’t shake the impending sense of… finality about it. Santiago has always pushed for more. One more job. One more mission. Has always sought to go big or go home. You’ve always wished he would choose the latter option, by the way, and for some damn reason, he never has. Maybe he thinks he has nowhere like that to go. Maybe the bastard truly will run and gun until it kills him, and the thought of him ending that way…

The thought of him ending at all…

It sends cold shivers down your spine. Spins a tight knot in your stomach which becomes denser by the day.

You are mildly ashamed when you tuck Santiago’s old rosary beads beneath your pillow, fingertips unconsciously snaking under it during the night to grip them tightly. To hold something of his within your grip, when he seems so out of reach, is priceless to you. He’d gifted the beads to you years ago. For protection. Now, you curse yourself that they aren’t in his possession. You don’t even believe in any of that, for Christ’s sake. But it sure would comfort you all the same, you reckon. If he had some reminder on his person of how loved he is. Of the people counting on him to make it back.

Of course, you’ve been checking your phone constantly. Even though they’d warned you repeatedly when they were about to go dark. You’ve braced for it. For a shock. A collision. Bad news. You’ve been unable to eat, sleep, think. And so, even when you finally receive Frankie’s cursory text that they’ve made it out -a simple helicopter emoji and a thumbs-up delivered from a burner cell- you can’t fully trust it.

That night, you still wake in a cold-sweat, chest heaving with ragged breaths. Feeling like the momentarily relief you’d felt must have been a dream, and that the visions of Santiago lifeless and cloaked in red are far more likely to be real.

You won’t fully believe it, you think, until you hold him in your arms once again. See him with your own two eyes.

You need to see him again.

The problem is, Santiago has never excelled at coming home. Has never excelled at joining the dots to realise he even has one at all.

You don’t know when the next opportunity to do that -to see him, hold him - will be. Don’t know whether he’ll simply keep running into yet another mission, then the next and the next and the next, his path leading him further away from you all over again.

You don’t imagine that he’ll find his way back any time soon.

Turns out, you are wrong.

***

You are baking in your kitchen when you notice him, the window forming a perfect frame as he appears, stood at the mouth of your driveway. His head is tipped up towards the eaves of your house. A hold-all is slung over his shoulder. His unseated ball cap is clutched solemnly in folded hands - as though he’s rocked-up outside of church after a long absence, ready to repent his sins.

You aren’t able to tear your gaze away from him. It feels as though if you blink, he might simply vanish all over again, like you are so used to him doing.

Feet planted to the tiles, and without turning your head - without even blinking - you say your sister’s name out loud. Like you used to when you were small and afraid you’d heard a monster in the dark. And, coming to your side, just like she’d always done then, she follows your fixed gaze through the window. Right to the spot where Santiago stands, bathed in golden fall light like an epiphany - nothing monstrous about him.

“Oh, honey,” she says, placing a hand on your shoulder.

When she does so, you realise you’ve been holding your breath. Realise that your ears are ringing and your pulse is thudding in your neck. When you finally suck in air, its passage is stunted, your chest fluttering around it.

“Come on, kids,” your sister motions to your nephews, shooing them towards the living room with promises of cartoons and brownies. “We’ll give you some space,” she whispers across to you as she seamlessly shuffles the troops out. “Will you be okay?”

You finally turn to her then. Manage to tear your eyes away from him. When you do, whatever expression is rendered on your face causes her to shoot you a look of sympathy.

At first, no sound comes out when you try to respond, your lips quaking around the words. You try again, and it is better, though still croaky. “I have no idea.” You don’t know what you are feeling. All you know, is that when you settle your hands on the edge of the counter, they are shaking.

After a quick visual check, across the hall to the kids, once again your sister slots in at your side, squeezing your shoulder in reassurance. She dips to give you a quick kiss on the cheek, cupping the crown of your head. “Here. Splash your face,” she encourages, turning on the cold faucet and guiding you until you oblige, the shock of the cold water pooling in your cupped palms bringing you back to your body. The pleasant cool against your cheeks providing you some relief. You dry your face off on your sleeve. Rub your palms against the legs of your worn jeans. “I’ll be right in there.” She nods her head in the direction of the living room. “Any funny business, I’ll kick his damned ass all the way back to Colombia. Alright?”

It occurs to you that you love her dearly.

You nod and, satisfied, your sister vacates the kitchen. You watch her disappear through the mouth of the door frame, and, by the time you look back at Santiago, he is taking his first steps down your driveway.

Pressing your palms to your cheeks, you look helplessly back and forth; between him, and the door through which your sister had retreated. You don’t know what to do, exactly.

You weren’t expecting this.

Santiago “Pope” Garcia never comes home.

Santiago is never walking towards you; he is only ever running away. And now, here he is about to walk through your door? To make the house you’ve bought sing, for better or worse, with the pain of all the empty space still contained with it?

Like the Lorea job, this moment has a dreaded sense of finality to it, you think. Like this completely insignificant - yet wildly momentous - occasion is either about to slot everything you’ve ever wanted into place; or, to make any hope of it crumble into pieces.

Until so very recently, you’ve never had to think about how your story ends. Whether it will end up happy. You’ve simply been trying to survive the fraught middle.

Well, here Santiago is. He’s made it back to you.

You feel like you’re about to find out once and for all.

And so, you do the only logical thing you can think to do.

You run.

***

This is the one, he thinks as he pulls up to park, checking the mailbox numbers against Frankie’s text. This is the house.

He sits in the rental truck a good few moments longer than necessary before climbing out, grabbing up the navy hold-all from the backseat and turning towards the mouth of your driveway.

This is the house.

It’s the kind of house he’s always feared for what it represents - a commitment - and yet, now that he is stood here, looking-up at the structure in the flesh, it doesn’t look quite so fearsome as he’s always imagined.

He gives it a scan over, looking for signs of you. Sure enough, he notes that your lawn is the most unkempt on the block. That your porch hanging-baskets, filled with colourful lantanas, are bursting and full. Your drive is cluttered with strewn kids’ bicycles. And, the front door is painted in a bold hue that only you would have picked out, stood in stark defiance of the glum, muted tones along the rest of the row.

This is the house.

And it is perfect.

It is somehow still you, already - even from the outside. Santiago always thought that moving forward meant changing - losing something of yourself - but he is pleased to note he still recognises you in all of this. That, despite the white picket fence surrounding your garden, it no longer represents a perimeter he dare not cross.

Even so, Santiago freezes there for a moment. He finds his feet won’t quite carry him willingly over the threshold from the street to your property. He takes a moment to drink it in instead. To look at what you’ve done for yourself. What you’ve created. What you’ve chosen. Santiago has always, on some level, worried that he couldn’t give you the life you deserved; but it’s clear to him now that he didn’t have to, because you’ve built that for yourself.

As if anything could stop you.

You have a yard. You have a white fucking picket fence wrapped around it.

He half-snorts to himself. Shaking his head softly in disbelief.

Still, it is there in the back of his head. That small, constant niggle. Even now, Santiago has half a mind to run. This house, to him, represents a place of innocence. Represents a new start and a freshness - one that he would never wish to soil with his bloodied hands. He tries to imagine being inside the house, with you, and yet all he can envision is himself dragging his red, bloody palms all along your pristine white walls. All he can see is him staining this life you have built. Bringing the blood and the dark inside, the way it inhabits the interior of him.

He almost does too. Almost turns away.

Old habits die hard.

All of his fears and insecurities reliably surface, and he imagines the hold-all he is arriving with is the weight of all of his past baggage. He considers - for a moment - whether he would rather have the memory of you from the beachouse, asleep and naked, bathed in golden light and sea breeze, to be the last one he ever holds of you. Wonders if it might be eminently easier that way.

He thinks about it; but then, he sees you through the window. In the kitchen. Turned away from him, but still unmistakable.

He smiles wistfully. And he starts walking.

He knows he can’t possibly turn away from you now. There’s no damn way that the back of your head can be the last image of you he sees; and so, he is driven onwards. Now, more so than ever, Santiago knows he needs to face you.

He fixes his eyes on the path ahead, then. Continues walking, his thoughts abuzz with how he’s going to greet you. How he’s going to explain himself for turning up unannounced, somehow both early and overdue all at once.

His thoughts are cut short and his plans entirely foiled, however, when a body slams up against him. For a split second he wonders whether he is getting football tackled to the floor, but he knows, even as you are crushed up against him and your face is indiscernible, that it’s you. He would know the weight and shape of you against his body anywhere.

You run to him and you hug him, your cold cheek pressing up against his own. Your hands clawing into the back of his navy bomber, and your arms squeezing him with enough force that he abruptly - a bit winded from being body-slammed - drops the hold all to the floor like he’s finally letting go of all his bulllshit. Drops this precious cargo like there’s something far more precious to cling on to after all.

You pull away from him as he coughs emphatically from the chest-slam, clearly examining him to see if he’s in one piece. Your eyes rove over every inch of him - like they used to do when you would “buddy up” to check for injuries in the field. Instinctively, he attempts to mentally catalogue his own injuries too. He finds that he doesn’t feel hurt at all, no; but that he does feel entirely raw. Vulnerable, like a singing open wound as he sees your face again, emotion shining in your eyes like a sea at the edge of his land.

“You asshole! You’re okay? You’re really okay?” You tug on his lapels, hands fisting there like you’re trying to shake some sense into him.

“Went off without a hitch,” he reassures, hoping you don’t notice the way his voice breaks as you drag him back into your arms again. This time, too, Santiago’s arms loop around you in return, his eyes slowly closing as he takes a deep inhale from where his face tucks neatly into the crook of your shoulder, your familiar scent unravelling the tight knot in the pit of his chest. He wasn’t hurt, no; but nor was he okay. Knew that he wouldn’t really be okay until he was by your side again. That he never really had been.

“You got out clean?” you ask urgently, this time pulling away to smooth your palms over his lapels, undoing the disarray you’d caused.

He nods. “We don’t leave messes,” he opts to say assuredly, channelling Benny for a boost of confidence, as though luck hadn’t had a considerable amount to do with it.

“Yeah?” You examine his face for any sign he is smoothing over the truth of things, and he breathes a sigh of relief as his contrivedly neutral expression seems to satisfy you. “You got fucking lucky, you know that? Nothing got hairy?”

“Oh, it got fucking hairy. Cat almost tanked the chopper, for one thing.”

You tut emphatically. “Bull shit. That’s Cat slander and I won’t have it. Tell Ironhead to get the bastard better equipment next time, huh?”

Santiago likes this. Likes that no matter how long it’s been, you always greet one another like you’re mid conversation. Like despite the miles and countless moments which have passed, you were just in the middle of something.

Still… the suggestion of a “next time” drives a wedge through the space between you.

Next time.

One more mission; then another, and another, and another. Right?

Running in goddamn circles. Chasing his tail.

You sniff, and he watches your valiant attempt to shake it off, still staring at him with a misty look in your eye like he’s come back from the dead. You fold your arms across your chest, perhaps in efforts to subdue your initial, reckless affection. You toss your head over your shoulder, towards the wide open front door. “So. Y’ coming inside?” You nod down at his hold-all. “Or… do you have somewhere else to be?”

Santiago purses his mouth. Drops his gaze to the hold-all and stoops to wrap his fingers around the rough, looped handles. He feels the itch in his feet again. The urge to run. Sees the window open - his chance to escape. It wouldn’t take much. An easy, casual: yeah, I have a flight to catch. His age-old tricks. But at the same time he sees that window open, he sees your open door in view. The warm glow and invitation of your house beckoning him inside. The warm glow and invitation of you.

How could he possibly have anywhere else to be?

“I’d love- I mean, yeah. If I’m not intruding.”

You simply roll your eyes and -he’s pretty sure- mumble “idiota” under your breath. But, before he can wonder, you are taking him by the hand and leading him into the house.

He follows.

It’s a while since he’s followed you anywhere, but he does it now without a second thought.

Like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

Still. It should be a relief of sorts and yet… He feels his pulse quicken. Feels nerves twist in the pit of him - and he knows fine well it’s illogical. Knows it makes zero sense to fear a physical building.

But… no, that’s not quite it, is it? That was never it. His whole adult life, Santiago has been afraid of something far deeper than that, hasn't he?

Those feelings and fears, however, begin to drop away like leaves from a fall tree the moment he steps inside. From the moment you fuss his jacket off of his shoulders and hang it on the single empty coat hook, as though there’s been a space reserved for him all along. From the moment the wafted scents of home-baking and you fill his lungs he feels…

He feels… not quite ready to name what he feels yet; but he does acknowledge the lump lodging in his throat when he crosses the threshold, enveloped by the life you have been living without him.

You beckon him further inside, trying, to no avail, to prize the hold-all from his grip, so instead, tutting and letting him hang on to it anyway. Tugging the baseball cap from off of his head and throwing it in a spot right next to the key bowl, right before you instinctually ruffle his flattened, graying curls free.

You chat aimlessly - a natural and familiar commentary. He listens, but he’s also scanning, as per usual. Observing. Drinking the details of this house in. Taking in each framed photo arranged along the hall, curling up the stairs in a timeline of sorts. A record of your life. And, as he assesses, he stops dead in his tracks in front of one particular photo. It’s a buddy from years back. A friend you’d both lost to an IED. Above that, there’s a picture of you and Will standing jubilantly on top of a humvee, which makes his face split with a grin even as tears are balling in his eyes from the prior flood of memories. Beside that, there’s a goofy picture of you and him together, taken at his late mom’s 60th birthday. That one, in particular, makes him unsure whether to laugh or cry or both.

You come to stand beside him. Silently. Solemnly - as he saws a hand self-consciously across his stubble, not knowing quite how to feel amidst the concoction of varied emotions lodging in him like schrapnel. Fragments.

Meanwhile, you bump his shoulder with yours, before joining him in concentrating wistfully on the wall of photos suckering his attention.

Then, he finally places the feeling. He feels… like an idiot. For not seeing it before.

It’s your life, he realises. All set out here. Summarised. Catalogued.

But it’s his life too. It’s a shared life. He recognises most of the faces, events, occasions, and locations pictured. Feels the memories and emotions attached -his and yours, first-hand, second-hand - as his eyes tick over the display. Christ. He’s spent so long trying to run from you, hasn’t he, that he’s neglected to recall all the times you have walked side-by-side. He’s spent so long in staunch refusal that he could give you the life that you deserved that he’s neglected to realise that all this time, you were already building one together.

And oh boy. What a messy and complicated and hard and fucking beautiful life it has been.

All of that - he realises - is exactly why. Exactly why being here with you now, in this house he’s never even set foot in before, feels exactly like coming home.

For a moment, he looks at you, and -struck by you, like a gut punch - Santiago doesn’t know what to say. Quickly though, he remembers. Remembers that with you, it always feels like you’re right in the middle of a conversation.

He takes an emphatic sniff. “You’re baking?”

“Heh. Yeah.” You nod towards the living room door, from behind which a kerfuffle of cartoons and chatter is sounding, he clocks. “My nephews are here.” You place a finger over your beautiful lips and lean in, like you’re telling him a deep, dark secret. “I bought a packet mix.”

Santiago can feel his eyes glowing at you like headlights as your cheeky, full-beam smile shines back at him, but suddenly, he’s no longer particularly inclined to hide it.

“So?” You press gently, as his knuckles almost whiten from gripping the hold-all so tight. “What brings you to this neck of the woods, anyway?”

His mouth drops open wordlessly. For a moment, Santiago legitimately forgets. Forgets that he hasn’t always been here. He forgets, in fact, that he’s here for anything besides falling to his knees and clinging to you. Anything besides weeping for joy with his head buried against your stomach. Holding you so tightly, to make up for all of the times he’s so willingly let you go.

Fortunately, the weight of the hold-all tugging at his arm reminds him of one more reason, which, now that he’s here, actually feels a hell of a lot more like an excuse. “I’ve brought something for you.” He nods towards the kitchen. “Can we..?”

The kitchen is the heart of the home. It’s the heart of your home, and it’s the place where so far - recently - Santiago has tried to possess you, claim you, blame you, plead with you, and appease you. As though your body carries the memory of that you nod, tension pinching your face, and he clocks a swallow of apprehension darting abruptly down your throat. Still, you gesture for him to enter, and he follows closely behind.

“It’s weird that the kitchen’s at the front of the house, right?” You waffle, banaly. “But I like it. Feels more open. I like looking out at the front yard when I-”

“-Cook-up a storm?”

You scoff; not likely. “Throw away my pizza boxes.”

With your quip, mirth lights his eyes; yet - as ever - Santiago remains laser-focussed on his mission. He lifts up the hold-all, and plonks it down right on top of your kitchen island. “Here.” He nods towards the bag as you eye it sceptically.

“What? Did you bring me your fucking laundry?”

“Christ,” he scolds, even as your comment raises a warm chuckle. “No. It’s your share.”

You exhale softly through your raised palms as realisation dawns on you. “Santi. What the fuck?”

You cross to the bag and unzip it, mouth dropping into an “o” and eyes bugging as you reveal stacks and stacks of neatly bundled cash inside. Immediately, you shake your head, holding your palms up in the air and thrusting them away from your body. “No. Hell no.” His face drops. “I didn’t do anything to earn this.”

Oh, that’s your issue? On the contrary. You’ve earned this a hundred times over. “Oh, really? Remind me. How many times did you get shot, huh?”

You peer down to the bag again in disbelief. Santiago would continue to emphasise all that you deserve; but he can tell that you’ve already tuned him out anyway. He can transparently see the calculations ticking over in your head. What this money might mean for you. What you could do with it. Conversely, the strings that could feasibly be attached. The blood on it.

“It wasn’t just me. We all agreed.” He nods decisively, brows pinching down. “You and Tom get a share too. We wouldn’t be anywhere without you.” His voice breaks. “Shit. I wouldn’t be…” He simply couldn’t picture his life without you. Doesn’t even want to begin to try.

You drag both hands back over your head, elbows jutting out at sharp angles. “Santiago. I can’t keep this.”

He steps closer to you. Waits until your arms drop and cups your elbows with his sure palms. “So donate it. Set up a college fund for the boys. Whatever.” His eyes grow big and unusually earnest as he searches yours. “But would you please take it?”

He knows it’s hardly a drop in the ocean. That there is no way he could begin to repay all you’ve done for him. All he knows is that he wants you to have it. All he knows is that you deserve anything and everything he can give you, even if it’s never going to be enough.

Your hands are shaking slightly when you bring them up to your mouth, but he can see the beginnings of the cautious, giddy smile which eventually claims you. As you begin to accept this is really happening.

“You brought cash? Seriously? You motherfucker.”

His throat bobs with a deep chuckle. “Why not? Wasn’t it you who said you always wanted to fuck on a huge pile of money?”

“I’m almost 1000% confident that was Benny.”

“Meh. Doesn’t hurt to have the option,” he teases, but once again, you’re no longer listening to him - not really. Your fingers are carefully gripping the lip of the bag and peeling it open, finally letting it sink in.

“Thank you,” you say resonantly, dragging your eyes up to him only after you have managed to push the words out. Crossing to him. Wrapping your arms around him, your fingers tracing over the ridged scar at the back of his neck, your voice turning wet. “But… You know that this means nothing to me, right?”His hand moves slow and steady, up and down your back. “You know that all I wanted was for you to come back?”

He holds you more tightly then, as your emotions begin to spill over, tiny fractures in your voice. You subdue it, though. You clear your throat. Compose yourself a little too quickly for his liking, his body missing the warmth of you immediately as you pull away.

“Since we’re doing gifts though. I’ve actually got something for you too.” You clasp your hands together, pleading. “And you have to promise me you’ll take it.”

You move only once he’s nodded, your serious expression compelling him into acquiescence. You don’t need to go far to retrieve it. Instead, you reach to fumble something out of your jeans pocket.

His eyebrows leap up towards his hairline. “Fuck me. Are these-?”

It knocks him for six as you unfurl a string of familiar black rosary beads, the loop penduluming from your thumb as you hold them out, offering them to him. Offering them back to him.

“You remember?”

He scoops his forefinger and thumb around his mouth, stubble bristling. He answers your question without even answering. “You kept them.”

“Well. Yeah.” You grab hold of his hand. Fumble his palm open and thrust the beads into it, curling his fingers back around them until he grasps on to them tightly. “And I don’t want you to be without them anymore, okay?”

Santiago is lost for words - his mouth agape. He shuffles from foot to foot in disbelief for a moment, before clamping his hand over yours, his grip as warm and sure as it’s ever been.

God.

You’ve loved him, haven’t you? You’ve loved him whether he believed that he deserved it or not. You’ve loved him every single step of the way. You’ve loved him even when he was difficult and stubborn. When he was in the throes of grief. When he was bleeding out from a stab wound.

You have loved him at his best and at his worst; and goddamn it, he has loved you back.

He didn’t do so before, when the thought had first occurred to him, but he does now. He does drop to his knees on the cold, tiled kitchen floor, wrapping his arms around your middle. He does bury his face in your stomach, holding you as tightly as possible.

He drops to his knees as though he’s finally repenting of his ‘sins’. He holds you now, to make up for all of the times he so willingly let you go. To show you - he hopes - how he never wants to let you go again.

Meanwhile, his gesture appears to punch the air from your lungs. Your hands hover -uncertain- just moments from him, and then, as you inhale, you must find you already know what to do. Your fingertips dip into his hair. Your palms cradle his head. He feels tears wet his cheeks as he buries his face in your soft, sweater adorned stomach. He silently rues every single time he thought he needed one more mission - and the next, and the next, and the next. Wonders how he’d believed all this time he was built for brutality, when, although his hands were trained to kill, they were made to love you gently.

“Santiago.” He screws his eyes shut at the softness in your voice as you sound his name, a roughly hewn sob gently wracking his chest. You say his name in a way he’s never heard it spoken, and before he knows it, you are on your knees with him, tipping his chin up with careful fingers until his wet eyes meet your soft, warm, bathtub gaze.

You stroke your palm down the side of his face and you nod, slowly, tears beading in your eyes too.

He knows what your touch is telling him now. What it has been telling him all along even whilst he was still too stubborn to hear it.

It’s telling him… That this is what safety feels like.

That he’s home.

You are his home, and what’s more; he is welcome.

He surges up onto his knees, pressing his chest to yours, winding his broad hands into your hair to pull you into an achingly raw, desperate kiss.

Your lips are a door. Your mouth a corridor. Your heart is a room. Your chest is his roof. He wants to live in you. Bury himself inside you. Wants to walk barefoot on your tender carpet. Wants to fill his chest with the warm rumble of a kettle. Wants to step into you like a warm bath. To be covered by you. Held by you. You are his walls. His sanctuary. All roads lead here to you, to this house; and they always have, even when he’d felt so lost.

He has never been home before; but this must be how it feels, he thinks, to finally stop running.

He kisses you, his urgency dissolving into softness like sugar into water. You kiss him back. It’s a sweet, tender thing, as delicate as the tears beading in his lashes.

“Santiago. Christ, your knees. Get up. Please.” You’re crying too, he realises. Crying as though you’re as glad as he is that he has finally arrived somewhere that does not ask him to wound himself. You cup his face again, concern in your eyes, but he slides his hand over yours. Tucks the rosary beads into his pocket, an item far more priceless than the - now forgotten - bag of money on the counter.

It has been a long road.

It has been a long time.

It has been a lifetime, and he sees now, that his road was always leading him to you.

Your gaze flits all over his face. “Heyyy,” you soothe, with a softness he finally feels he deserves. “You okay?”

“Y-Yeah. I…”

“What?”

He fumbles a tear away from his cheek, a bright feeling bursting out of his chest. “Can I…?” He laughs, it feels so preposterous. “Do you mind if I… stay for a little while?”

Your eyebrows briefly pump up in surprise; but even so you smile fondly at him, answering his question without answering. “You’re an idiot, you know that?”

You rise together to standing, chest to chest and still hovering moments from a kiss; and yet, neither of you are closing the distance. Not yet, not now, and it’s… actually a wonderful thing. To wait. It feels suddenly like there is time now. For the first time in Santiago’s life, it feels like there is a future. A future for him, instead of isolated moment after moment, grasped in haste. Instead of one mission to the next, to the next. So, instead of kissing you again; more; deeper; Santiago reaches up, the crook of his curled forefinger gently tracing the line of your jaw until you flutter your eyes at him bashfully. Until his mouth twists into a lopsided, disbelieving smile.

Then: “Oh-my-God-I’m-sorry-” your sister blunders as she unceremoniously cracks the door, poking her head rather unsubtly around it. “We were, uh, just wondering what to do. We were gonna put a movie on but…” - she looks pointedly between the two of you and clocks your proximity - “We can always clear out if loud sex is about to ensue.”

Next, she catches a glimpse of the bag full of money and her eyes bug, though she abruptly tries to cover it.

You tut loudly at your sibling. “Jesus. Would you either come in or get out? You’re like a little floating head.”

She opts to step gingerly around the door, looking all the more awkward for it.

“Hi,” Santiago greets warmly, moving in for a heartfelt hug which catches your sister even further off-guard.

“Oh, hi!” she says (as though she’s only just noticed him) before asking - maybe with malice, or maybe through sheer force of habit - “How long are you sticking around for?”

Santiago looks sheepish for a moment.

After all, he doesn’t want to tell you just yet.

No - he doesn’t want to tell you that he’s signed a six-month lease on an apartment downtown. That he’s arranged to get therapy from a guy Will recommended. That he’s started working his networks and shifting his money around so he can finally make the leap into consulting. That he’s pretty sure - as sure as he’s ever been about anything - that he wants to marry you.

Of course, he isn’t seriously entertaining the idea that he can simply turn up and upend your life. Doesn’t expect -would never expect- to have everything laid out on a platter for him. But, this time, he at least has the strength to stick around. To find out once and for all what might be next, after so long going round in circles.

That’s why he doesn’t even want to tell you at all. Not yet. Not now.

Instead, he simply wants to show you.

“A movie sounds good.” He twines his fingertips with yours and your sister’s eyes bug harder at that than they had at the hold-all. “I mean. If I won’t be intruding?”

He looks to you for approval, and he hates that, right now, the prevailing emotion he can read on your face is surprise.

“You can really stay?!”

It’s a far bigger question.

That much is obvious. A question he realises you’ve been asking him for a long time, in a whole host of different ways.

Looking at you, here and now, it’s so alien to him that he wouldn’t. That he would ever run from you; bail out; seek out other women; skip town; bury his feelings. All of that bullshit.

In his time, Santiago has jumped out of planes; has run into burning buildings; launched himself towards enemy fire. But has he ever let himself love you so wholly and recklessly? Has he ever been as brave as that?

So, Santiago simply gazes back at you. Smiles, rehearsed crinkles radiating from around his warm, good-morning eyes.

This time, he answers your question. He thinks you finally deserve to hear it. After all; you deserve everything - and so you definitely deserve this.

“I can stay.”

You don’t even respond -not in words - and it might be because finally, finally, there is nothing between you which remains unsaid. You simply squeeze his hand, just a little tighter.

Santiago has known you for so many years. Has known you as a soldier; a friend; a lover.

He finally has the courage to see you all at once, and, in the years ahead, he can’t wait to know you in all the other ways there are.

You lead him through the door; and he follows.

It always was easy to follow you. To love you. It was the running that was hard.

He doesn’t know exactly what will happen next; but one thing’s for sure.

You’ll always be his Ride or Die.

THE END

#santiago pope garcia x reader #triple frontier #oscar isaac #santiago pope garcia #ride or die series

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