#implied ranchers but I won’t tag it I suppose

[shepscapades]

I think it’s safe to say Ranchers Win These

(In the silence between the last two panels, there is a 20 page comic in my head filled with flashbacks of every moment Scott teased, scolded, or dismissed Jimmy—and every moment where Tango was instead kind, patient, and proud)

[dancingtotuyo]

Better Man (Javier Peña)

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Lorraine sees Javier for the first time since he left her on their wedding day.

Warnings/Tags: implied smut, Lorraine's perspective on her & Javier's encounter at the wedding, pining

Notes: Written for @beskarandblasters's Taylor Swift event! Thank you beta reading as well my dear! Shoutout to @saradika-graphics for the dividers on this one and keeping all of our fics looking nice and sharp!

Words: 659

Author Master List | Javier Peña Master List | Resources to Aid Palestine

I hold onto this pride because these days it's all I have

She catches sight of him the moment she walks into the room. It doesn’t matter that she’s on Randy’s arm with her toddler in her arms or that she can only see the back of his head. She would know it anywhere. 

Javier Peña.

She hasn’t seen him in ten years, since the night before their wedding. Well, the day they were supposed to get married. 

Randy doesn’t catch the way she trips over her feet as he guides them toward an empty table. She’s barely let their son, her and Randy’s son before he’s running after his sister. She doesn’t have the energy to yell at them. She needs a stiff drink and a cigarette. Randy doesn’t seem to notice her distracted state. It’s better that way.

Lorraine narrowly avoids getting a drink spilled down the front of her dress as she approaches the bar. She can see his profile from this vantage point. He’s still the same Javi she remembers. He smiles at a kid and cringes at something someone else says. He’s good at hiding it, but she knows him. She knows when he’s putting on a facade. Well, she thought she did. Maybe the fact that he never made it to the church on their wedding day says differently. 

She lets out a deep sigh, shaking her head. She won’t let him do this to her. He doesn’t get to throw her off a whole decade after the fact. She’s married. She has two beautiful children. She’s living a life she much prefers to the idea of being a rancher’s or federal agent’s wife. 

The bartender puts her drink on the bar top. She shoves a couple of bills in the tip jar and thanks him, making her way back to the table. She refuses to look his way on her way back to the table. 

Then she’s at the table, helping the kids with something. Her mind is clear of him when she hears her name, her name in a timbre that feels like coming up for fresh air after nearly drowning. She curses internally. She can’t let him see it, the effect he still holds over her.  

“Lorraine.”

She steels herself, paining the indifferent look on her face, and keeps her body language indifferent before she turns around. He’s charming and he’s laying it on thick. She takes it as a sign that she’s succeeding, that he can’t tell those brown puppy dog eyes are making her insides melt. 

Lorraine loves her life. It was for the better that he left her that day. 

Javi seems to reel it in when Randy shows up. She feigns forgiveness even to herself. She wants to mean it.  

Neither man catches the way her eyes linger a little too long after Javi as he walks away. 

Sometimes in the middle of the night, I can feel you again

Randy makes love to her that night in her parents’ home. They have to be quiet. It’s a bit of a relief to have to hold back her sounds of pleasure for once instead of exaggerating them. It keeps her mind from wandering. He’s not a bad lover. If anything, he’s better than any of the other men Lorraine has been with, all but one that is. 

There was only one person who could ever make her brain completely stop and block the rest of the world out, only one man who made her leave her body only to bring her back into herself. 

Randy snores softly next to her, arm thrown over her bare midsection, but Lorraine is wide awake, mind wild with the “what ifs” of life. 

She knows it was all for the better. 

She loves her husband.

Randy is a good man.

But sometimes she wishes Javier was a better man. 

You would've been the one if you were a better man