#series: narcos

[daily-stars-source]

PEDRO PASCAL as Javier Peña and DANIEL CRAIG as James Bond

cracksip - when the fire meet the water - Dear Bond: - We've been going like a hurricane, shoulder to shoulder, side by side. And suddenly I was left alone, I had to face your immediate disappearance. I didn't believe I'd see you again and you were still saving my ass from dangerous. I owe you my fucking life, bro. Thank you, James, I hope we will meet again someday...

Fuck you, Javi.

[zanephillips]

Pedro Pascal in Narcos 1x02

[almostfoxglove]

I'LL CARRY YOU: part II

YOU CARRY IT

RATING: Explicit (18+) PAIRING: Javier Peña x f!Reader WORD COUNT: 7.7k CW: Smut (piv, characters are drunk but sound of mind and consenting), drinking, and a lethal amount of yearning.

SUMMARY: Four years after he disappeared from your bed in the early morning, Javier returns to Laredo once more—exhuming a lifetime of memories.

part I | series masterlist | series on ao3 | almostfoxglove masterlist

dividers by @saradika-graphics & insp for one moment from this post (wink)

ELEVEN

You don’t know you love him, but you do. Grass-stained and grubby, dirt beneath your fingernails, digging for jewels in the front yard that yields nothing but squirming things. Earthworms, pillbugs, a slug. Beside you, Javier is on all fours, scanning the lawn through squinted eyes, his head haloed by the sun as he blocks the light. “Don’t see nothin’,” he groans, elbows bent as he dips his face close to the ground. So earnest in his hunt for something that’ll delight you—buried treasure.

You grin, watching him, knowing in your heart there isn’t anything good buried in the square of grass outside your house, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is this: the afternoon spent in the company of the lanky kid whose arrival has punched your whole life out of orbit, rewriting all that is possible for you. Reimagining. 

With a huff, Javier sits back on his heels, his t-shirt stained with soil. His mom’s gonna whack the back of his head when he gets home—lightly, lovingly—for ruining another set of clothes, but he’ll never learn his lesson. “Sorry,” he mumbles, meeting your gaze with round, warm apologies swimming in the earth of his eyes. “Can’t see anything good.”

It’s obvious he means it, obvious he’s disappointed in himself for not accomplishing the impossible. Fulfilling some childhood fantasy you’re well aware will never be real. For Javier, it’s not enough to see you dreaming; he wants to make it come true.

Small smile on your lips, you reach out to nudge his skinny arm. “I forgive you,” you tease, and he blinks once before he catches the joke in your tone and a grin grabs hold of his face, briefly creasing his cheek.

Just then the wind chime sings from your porch and both of you turn to see the sea glass shiver prettily in the breeze. In a moment that feels beyond time, you and Javier sit transfixed by its gentle magic—the sparkling tune of blue-green glass chiming in the wind. The moment ends only when Javier slumps down to lie in the grass, dropping his head into your lap. School’s only been in session for three weeks—which means you’ve known him a grand total of twenty-one days—but somehow, though he’s never done this before, his touch feels to you as natural as breathing.

Javier sighs. At eleven, he’s already burdened by the weight of the whole world, and you don’t know why.

Shy, your hand hovers over his head, stilled by hesitation. Then he wiggles a little, adjusting himself to lie with one cheek pressed to your thighs and the other turned up to you, and your hand falls softly against his temple, brushing an unruly lock away from his eyes. He makes a soft sound sort of like a hum as if you’ve done what he wanted, and pride surges in your chest—a sudden tide. Dark lashes fluttering, his eyes close. His cheek pink and gold beneath the carpet of sun.

“Sad?” you ask him softly, carding your fingers through his hair, unfazed by the sweat that wets the curls at the nape of his neck. You don’t find him gross, not for a second, but you don’t know yet what that means.

His shoulder bobs with a tired shrug. “Wanted to find you somethin’ good,” Javier mumbles.

“That’s okay. The fun part is looking.”

“Still wanted to,” he sighs.

And you know, sudden as a lightning strike, that this boy’s your best friend in the world. Doesn’t matter that you don’t know his middle name yet, or all his secrets, the feeling thrown down at you from above hits you without any warning, rearranging your cells—you love him all at once. That’s all it takes. You’d do anything for him.

EIGHTEEN

You love him, but so does everyone here—Javier Peña is an incredible drunk. Three red solo cups deep and barely eighteen, he doesn’t dance through the packed dormitory lounge, he swims. Graceful and lithe, though the occasional splash of shitty beer gulps golden from his cup, splattering on the floor. But Javier dances with his whole body, especially when he’s drunk, outweighing any mess with his charm: head thrown back and eyes closed as he sings along to whatever record someone’s put on, hips balletic, boneless, fluid. He focuses on someone for a song or two like they’re the only person in the room, then moves right along to find someone new. 

The girl he’s dancing with now is licking his neck.

You think you’re ready to go home.

When the next song ends, he comes down panting from his lyric high and his head sways in your direction: perched on the back of the couch with your feet on the cushions in the corner of the room, worrying the slit that’s cracked in the plastic rim of your cup with your thumbnail. You’re not sure how many drinks you’ve had, only that two of them were jello shots that went down like slugs and made your mouth taste like a rancid ice pop. Still does, unfortunately. No quantity of beer seems capable of rinsing it out.

Javier bends down to whisper something in the girl’s ear and she removes her lips from the column of his throat, slinking off to be swallowed by the dance floor with a smirk on her face. And that’s it: the magic of his attention—hardly anyone seems mad when he moves on. There are, from what you can see in the dark, no jealous glares or bitter remarks spat from anyone. 

Perhaps Javier gives his lust freely, fleetingly, but it is always earnest. 

Now he’s headed straight for you.

The minute he reaches you with that lazy grin, you’re cured. Happy again, drunk on the dazzle of the black lights someone tacked up on the walls with duct tape. The writhing mass of limbs and hips made neon in the dark—shocks of ultraviolet and blue raspberry and the brightest white ricocheting from painted bodies. Biceps and back pockets and necks branded with electric green acrylic. Beaming in his white button up, the top three buttons undone and collar open loose around his throat, Javier is a dream. Luminous and stained by a slender handprint low on his shirt like whoever left it had grabbed his hip.

“Why aren’t you dancing?” he asks, frowning. He blinks up at you, his gaze narrowed and face shadowed in the dark, and drops onto the couch to settle between your legs. 

You’d be surprised if you were sober, but you’re not, so you think nothing of it—though he’s never touched you like this before, in front of so many eyes.

“Too clumsy,” you reply.

Sitting above him, you’ve got the perfect view of the crown of his head. Dark curls dislodged by dancing and beer and the way he keeps running his hand through it, fingers carding between sweaty locks. When he bumps his head against the inside of your knee, you know what he wants. He never asks because he doesn’t have to. You know him. He knows you.

“Should dance with me,” he says as your hand slips mindlessly into his hair, scratching in the way that takes him apart. “I’ll let you step on my feet.”

“I’d have to get in line,” you tease, scratching harder for a second so his gaze lifts to the center of the dorm-turned-dance-floor where three girls are watching Javier as they roll their hips—three, and you don’t even have a full view of the crowd from where you’re sitting—and though his head points in exactly their direction, what you can glimpse of the expression on Javier’s face is what you’d expect to see if he were looking at a wall. Not callous, just vacant. Like there isn’t anything to see or form an opinion about.

You feel pleasure fill you in great, crashing waves—grateful for these moments when all he cares about is you.

He shrugs, tilts his head up again, and shakes his head to tell you he’s noticed you’ve stopped scratching. When your fingers move again, he hmphs, settles back against your knee. All senior year you’d wondered if he’d bore of you in college. You waited for it, figured he’d get on with new friends and stop needing you. Course Javier’s made friends, and while crossing campus together between lectures you’ve more than once witnessed girls approach him alone or in packs, and he always knows them by name. It’s not a secret that he’s fucked two girls since the semester started. Nothing is a secret between you.

And yet, here he is: tucked between your legs on this nasty couch like there ain’t a soul for miles but the two of you. Not a single thought about outgrowing you in his gaze at all.

Glaringly upset that you aren’t enjoying yourself like he thinks you ought to, too.

“Dance with me, cariño,” Javier insists—and your stomach yelps, sudden and breathless. He’s never called you this before, but he grins the moment it falls out of his mouth, so you must be smiling.

You shake your head, summoning his pout. Bottom lip jutted, licked, and glossy under elemental light. The girls who want him haven’t broken their gaze, despite your hand in his hair and his ignoring them. 

“Don’t have to be embarrassed,” he says. “Ever’one’s drunk.”

“You’re drunk,” you tease.

Javier cuts his eyes. “You’re drunk,” he grumbles, and as if on cue you hiccup once, yanking up the corner of his mouth. You stop scratching to sweep a curl off his damp forehead, charmed by the way he leans willingly into your hand. 

“Let’s go home,” he mumbles. 

You don’t question it; you take his hand without knowing whose dorm he means.

Turns out he means yours—bronze in penny-dark light at the edge of residence, a whole four blocks further from the party than his, but you’re not complaining. He has terrible pillows, a roommate. You’ve got a cozy shoebox with memory foam all to yourself.

At the front door, you drop your keys trying to fish them out of your bra, and Javier kneels to snatch them from the pavement. A single coin of light shines down outside the entrance in which he is now brightened, eyes glassy, head loosely attached. He sways, crouched still at your feet as he gazes up at you, not quite kneeling, not quite praying—but close, you think. This feels close.

“Smooth,” he chides softly, and offers you your keys. 

“Not m’fault,” you grumble as you take them. “Dress doesn’t have pockets.”

A grin. The magic of his face when he smiles properly, if only for a moment. With the light how it is, harsh and clear, all it touches is pristine. The flat of his jaw, the freckles between his collar bones, on the tanned triangle of his chest. You wonder about them, suddenly. How it might feel to make a constellation of him with your fingertips. 

“Pretty though,” Javier says.

How it would feel to make a constellation of him with your tongue.

You take the keys, face shied from illumination as if he might read the thought from your face—he probably could. A blessing and a curse, to be known by someone this well. Then the moment slips gone, gone, gone, and you and Javier walk hand in hand inside. Up three flights of stairs, down the echo chamber of your silent dorm, your hallway. He never once lets go. Long past quiet hours, now. No one awake, it sounds like, to make a peep but the two of you.

You only get one short, tremored jab of the key—it misses, then Javier whirls you around. Your spine meets your door and his eyes have never quite been this color, you think. Never quite this vibrant, this wanting, this terrified. Never quite this close to yours.

Warmth holds your face. His hands. 

“Javi?” you whisper, as he draws closer and your fool of heart skids rampant in your chest, smashing into your ribs.

He exhales sharply, fogging your face with the heat of his lungs, and you can smell the beer on him, his sweat and aftershave. You’re certain, too, that every time you’ve ever seen him nervous before now doesn’t hold a candle to the tremors you feel in him as he presses his chest gently against yours, pressing you cautiously against your door. 

Javier shakes his head, scoffs mirthfully, and licks his bottom lip. You watch his mouth—transfixed by the muscle of his tongue—and he watches yours. 

He’s going to kiss you, you realize. It looks like he’s going to—

“Porfa,” he whispers. “Una vez.”

One time.

Then you’re nodding before you can fear what nodding means, and Javier casts his shadow over all the world, disappearing everything that isn’t him, the careful press of his lips, and the way his shaking doesn’t stop until your arms have slid around his neck. He makes a small, needy sound passed from his tongue to yours as he sinks against you, whole and heavy. The sort of weight you’d carry as far as he needed, as far as you could take. 

His hands make a map of you, skimming places they’ve never ventured: high on your ribs, low on your stomach, the back of your neck, just under your chest, just over your ass. 

It’s a little clumsy—often your teeth bump in your enthusiasm and you part briefly to laugh—but it doesn’t feel wrong in the slightest. Every time Javier dips back in to kiss you again, you want more. When you slip one hand to his chest, the gold vee bared between open buttons, the slick of his skin rips a soft moan from you and Javier’s chest stutters beneath your touch. 

“Is this—” he whispers, pausing to catch your bottom lip between his again. “Is this okay?”

Giggling, though you don’t mean to—Javier draws back to look you in the eye and his are black: a body possessed. Helplessly searching for a sign you want him to stop or go on. You shake and shake your head, lay your fingertips over his soft lips, and Javier’s eyebrows dent low over his eyes, utterly lost and confused. His hands stop their trail to rest on your hips. 

To you, it’s hilarious that he could possibly wonder when it’s so obvious that this is what you should’ve been doing all this time. Now you can’t imagine how you ever avoided it before. Smiling, you feel him breathe on your hand as he scans your face for a clue before you finally get out, “Mhm,” and then, quieter, “Don’t stop.”

“Thank fuck,” Javier mutters, before crashing back into you—with meaning this time, lips needy, hands heavy in their roam, not pinching but squeezing, pulling, holding you hot against the lean of his body, those fluid hips. 

His lips, emboldened. Trailing now to your jaw, finding a spot beneath its hinge that makes you mewl and tonguing it sweetly until you wiggle him off you to kiss him properly again. 

You manage to stumble inside, eventually, Javier’s shirt shedding before the door has closed. He scoops you into his arms the moment it’s off—your feet leave the floor, lose one shoe, and he trips over it and you yelp, accidentally biting his tongue as he catches himself against your shitty dresser. It creaks beneath his hand. 

“Gonna hurt ourselves,” he grumbles into your mouth, a little frustrated, his broad hand palming your ass to grind your hips against his.

“Worth it,” you grin.

You’re young, in love with him without rank or title or practice. Still mostly a child, all wonder and cravings that haven’t yet solidified into their final form—so it’s impossible to get this right the first time. You’ve had sex just once before for a grand total of eight minutes, and though Javier’s had a few more tries he hasn’t cracked it. Doesn’t help that you’ve got just the twin bed, and he’s all limbs. Has only his concentration to give you, his gravity, his ardent hunger. 

The way you feel all night that he wants you in his new, thrilling way. Always mumbling hotly into the curl of your ear.

Fuck, you feel—feel so good.

Pretty like this, so pretty like this.

And worst, maybe, which is to say best—want you, baby—wanted you so fuckin’ bad.

Despite the champagne grape color of his blush when he loses it halfway through, you think this is the closest you’ve ever come to transcendence. Every star aligned in perfect syzygy—at last, one piece of fate has clicked into its rightful place.

“Shit,” Javier mutters as he pulls out, soft and ashamed, but you just shake your head, tugging him back to you by the nape of his neck.

“Don’t care,” you insist. “Just wanna touch you.”

You mean it; you don’t care, but Javier still looks down at you with those round eyes guileless in his shame, open as any book. Fine, you’ll prove it. Tongue wet and doting, you lick between his freckles, kiss over his collarbone, across his chest, up his neck—an act of sincerity in which you make him the sky, a chain of constellations joined by your mouth. 

Then he’s hard again, hips canting against yours, and you resume.

It’s a kind of fullness that belongs not just to the body, not purely physical—but you dismiss this as nothing more than some nonsense, drunken thought.

In his fervor, your skull bumps against the wall and he gasps a sudden apology, one hand moving to cradle the crown of your head as he rocks into the cradle of your hips. Then your sudden laughter makes Javier’s whole body freeze suddenly, ceasing all rhythm. His hands pinch warningly at your waist.

“Gotta stop—shit, nena—quit laughin’,” he rasps, breathless, desperate. 

His sudden seriousness has you lost to besotted amusement, unable to keep your laughter from bubbling out.

“Fuck, you’re so tight,” Javier pants, with his eyes squeezed shut as he fails to concentrate. “Gonna make me—fuck.” 

Then he’s undone, his sweaty forehead dropped to your chest as he comes down, disappointed, from his high.

“S’okay,” you whisper, hands slinking through his hair which now is beyond salvation. A hopeless, shaggy cause so sweet between your fingers. In an instant he’s melted, body leaden on top of yours, squishing you to the mattress, safe, secure.

For a while you stay like this, both catching your breath. His forehead pressed to the skin between your breasts. Then Javier fetches a t-shirt from your dresser and helps you clean the mess of your stomach, both of you snickering, in awe of how strange and ridiculous this all is. Shirt tossed from his hand, it jellyfishes in the air, falls deflated to the floor like a gunned down hot air balloon and Javier crawls over you, stripes your cheek with his tongue just to get you to gasp, clumsy hands shoving him off you with a gross, Javi, while he sits back on his heels. He shrugs, dark eyes drifting to your lips. 

He doesn’t have to say what he’s thinking; you just roll your eyes.

“Shut up,” you tell him, blushing as you tug on clean underwear. “S’not the same.” 

When a sleep shirt comes next he grunts in disapproval, earning a soft shove to his arm.

He drags his pants back on but the paint-stained shirt stays off, his body all cricket at the foot of your bed: leaning back on one hand, legs bent at the knee. Lean muscle and sudden joints. His smooth, tanned chest. Beautiful, same as he’s always been, and somehow entirely new. He cracks your sorry excuse for a window, asks if you mind if he smokes.

Your eyebrows rise. “That’s a disgusting habit,” you scold, all smirk as you extend your arm expectantly. “You absolutely cannot smoke in my room, alone.”

With a smirk, he lifts his hips to pull a carton from the back pocket of his jeans—one of many pairs that make a meal of his thighs. Filter pinched between his teeth, brings the cup of one hand to the end as he flicks his lighter, birthing no flame.

“Drunker than I thought,” he mumbles to himself, defeated as you sigh.

Your hand, still open and waiting, folds twice. Give it to me, you mean, and he does; you thumb it a few times before tossing it back. “Just empty,” you say. 

The hem of your shirt slips up over your ass as you stretch for your desk drawer, and Javier—not yet broken from the spell of your entanglement—makes a low sound not unlike a growl that has you grinning. You produce a matchstick like a promise, bite it between your teeth, and hold his gaze as you draw it quickly from your mouth.

The red tip sparkles, flames.

“The hell d’you learn to do that?” he asks, crawling over once more to hold his cigarette to the small fire in your hand before it dies. Lit, he sucks once before handing the cigarette to you.

You shrug coolly. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” you smirk, drinking tobacco like it’s water until your lungs too protest and hack. As you cough, Javier lights a second from the match in the last moment before it snuffs, and leans back against the windowsill to take a drag that hollows his cheeks.

He knocks his foot against your bare knee with a pointed stare. “Teach me,” he says. So you do.

TWENTY-ONE

You love him. All night, he buys everything you drink. Twenty-one at last, you’re crowded against the sticky bar of The Last Man Standing amidst the Saturday high, bodies hot and impatient in every direction. So many adults who seem so much older than you. You think you spot your old algebra teacher smoking in a corner booth with a woman who is not his wife. Javier sweeps you against his barstool with a scowl when a man twice your size elbows you out of the way to order. 

“Here,” he grunts, and smacks his thigh twice with meaning, so you climb onto his lap, pleased that his arm hooks around the small of your back to steady you against his chest. 

Tipsy, that’s what he is. What you are. 

You lie to yourself. To the version of your heart that never got older than eleven, enraptured as you were the moment he walked into that classroom and hijacked your life. A bedtime story blooms in your head: you get him, somehow, over everybody else.

Call it a birthday wish.

“Such a gentleman,” you tease. 

“Just take your shot,” Javier grumps, dark eyes rolling in that way that means he’s fighting off a grin. Stashing his cigarette between his teeth, he nudges the shot glass toward you and you watch a lick of tequila spill onto the bar before you grasp it.

Together, you swipe your tongues across the back of your hands: you his, and he yours, before Javier showers salt from little paper packets he stole from a stranger’s basket of fries. He winks as the salt clings to your skin, folding the packets neatly to stash in his back pocket. Then you clink your glasses, hook arms, lap the salt, and swallow.

Tequila stripes hot down your throat, hits the churn of your stomach, and you grin as you set down your empty glass next to his on the bartop. Tipsy in the dreamy way that can put you to sleep if you don’t drink on, your head tips onto his shoulder to rest a while and Javier, without you having to ask, tightens his hold around your waist like he knows you want him to. 

“Don’t fall asleep,” he says, before his eyes flicker to the ceiling. “Got traditions to uphold.”

Above you, bras in every color known to man hang from the rafters and ceiling fans. Lacy things, plain things, hideous things—all polluted with a sheet of charcoal dust. You stab your elbow into his ribs, but Javier only holds you tighter, keeping your body in the cage of his.

“C’mon, baby,” he says. Eyes round and dark and twinkling with mischief. He clicks his tongue—daring you though he doesn’t have to. The heat of his proximity alone would do you in. That clumsy meeting of your bodies freshman year has not returned and you don’t think it ever will. He’s got Lorraine now, but the nicknames have stuck around. It’s normal, mundane, the way you call each other baby, cariño. Endearments felt with the whole heart but not the whole body.

Nena, however, was uttered by his plush lips just that once. Out of his mind on the precipice of release, probably doesn’t remember he said it. Probably didn’t realize even at the time. 

You try not to wonder if he calls Lorraine nena now, but he probably does. Definitely does. He loves her.

“Rules are rules,” Javier presses, eyebrows flicking up.

Rolling your eyes, you wrestle your arms behind your back to unclasp your bra through your shirt. His eyes hold yours as you drag the straps down your arms—left, then right—and you’d swear desire flares briefly in his eyes as you drag your bra from the sleeve of your shirt without having to undress. Must be the alcohol. Must just be him teasing you. 

Still, your cheeks burn. 

It’s not a nice bra, not one you’d show anyone, but Javier looks down as you hold it and moves below you, repositioning how you’re sitting on his lap. 

“C’mon then,” he urges you, patting the small of your back with his broad hand. 

You toss, someone across the bar lets out a masterful whistle, and your bra catches on the blade of the ceiling fan overhead perfectly. First try. Straps swinging, scalloped from the band. You beam—delighted by the applause that roars from the patrons nearest you—and the bartender slides down the line to offer another round on the house. 

Smug, Javier leans forward to take one while you grab the other. Righteous in his posture: chest broad and upright, pressed against you. Shirt unbuttoned at the top like some swash-buckling pirate you’d swoon over in a movie. Seems it doesn’t matter how much you try to forget what it felt like to be wanted by him, you just can’t. In some other version of your lives, he might not have met Lorraine. Or he met her but didn’t want her, because he already had you.

But he has you now, anyway. Javier gets it both ways. A girlfriend—blonde, pretty, wry—and a best friend who love him in the same way, while he only has to return that affection to one.

One week from now, his mother will give you her rosary when you visit her hospital room. Green beads polished to pearls by her prayers. 

Two weeks from now, she will die. The chemo has failed, unbeknown to the two of you. 

You’ll watch Javier shoulder her casket from church to grave with Chucho, his uncle and cousins, in a suit that’s too snug across the breadth of his shoulders and the tie she bought him for prom. You’ll watch Lorraine hold his hand the whole ceremony, the whole wake, and afterwards he’ll spend a week in your bed, unable to sleep without your arms, ignoring Lorraine’s calls and chain-smoking like a man who wants to die. If he cries, he won’t let you see it. But he’ll lie with you in the burrow of your duvet, his face planted in the bowl of your neck, sometimes kissing there. Tiny, needy grazes you’ll wordlessly allow. Kissing in return the top of his head, his forehead, his cheeks and knuckles. Never his lips. 

The ashtray you set on the nightstand for him will never move. It’ll stay there, unused, for years. When you move, it will move with you, set out on new nightstand, waiting for his return.

But you know nothing of that now. Today is all tequila and the glory of his attention, and everyone you love is alive.

“I hate you,” you grump as your glasses clink again.  

Javier hmphs, feigns impatience as he squeezes your hip. He does love you. You know that—you tell yourself so all the time. He loves you, just not in the right way.

“Drink, cariño,” he says. “Before we’re twenty-two.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

You love him, so you’d wait all night. Twenty minutes ain’t that late. Try telling that to your sputtering heart, but it’s fine. It’s just twenty minutes, and the look of this place. Just the glooms of shadow between each red-clothed table and cosmos of chandeliers that willow whenever someone opens the door and lets in a draft. 

It’s just that, now that you’re here, you have no idea why he picked this place. You’ve never been, and sat at a small table by the windows, it’s obvious why. This place, with its jazz band testing sound levels on the sunken stage, with its waitresses who are all, somehow, the most beautiful women you’ve ever seen—the kind of gorgeous so grand you can’t even hate them, can’t envy them, you can only sit in awe—this place is romantic. Unbelonging to you. 

This is the sort of restaurant you take someone when you ask them to marry you.

Which—given the last two weeks—is sort of hilarious. You’re inclined to believe Javier chose this place for dinner as a joke. Planned for the two of you to sit here, stuff yourselves stupid and tipsy and quip under your breath all night at the expense of the other patrons who all appear to be having a lovely night.

Except the joke’s not so funny when no one’s here to make it. 

Your watch spins its hands, laughing at you, making you the joke.

Thirty minutes late. 

You already have a feeling he isn’t gonna show—which is to say, you know for sure. Heavy and anchoring. Disappointment can center you, plant you where you sit. Sure, it’s not the first time Javier has flaked; his own head can often get the best of him when he’s restless or spent. But it’s different, knowing the depth of his heartache. Sensing it even when he isn’t in the room and isn’t anywhere nearby, like somehow your bodies can speak to each other at any distance. 

It’s not just your hurt you carry, but his shattering. The death of all his life was about to be that he ran like hell from.

When the waitress swings by, you accept a top-up on your wine. Might as well.

Soon the jazz band is playing, piano swooping acrobatic through the air, trumpet singing, sax crooning. As the sun drops low in the sky, flirting with rooftops, the chandeliers inside the restaurant dim. Then it’s alchemy, the aura of the room. Straight out of some movie that’d break your heart half as much as you fear it breaking any second now. 

You wish you knew why he asked you to meet him here.

You wish you knew why he told you to dress up—just a little, Christ, cool it, baby.

You wish you knew why he hasn’t come.

Not that this day on your calendar hasn’t been circling around in your head like water in a tub that won’t fully drain. There isn’t anything good to tell someone who just left their fiancée at the altar, even if he is your best friend—Javier knows this. 

Maybe that’s why he still hasn’t shown. 

Seems cruel to ask you here, gussied up for nothing in the dress he ten years ago peeled off you—reverent in his gaze and fixation, alight with obvious pleasure—when he must have known he wasn’t going to come.

Might have jinxed it when you hauled it out from the grave of your closet this afternoon. Feels pathetic, now, that you put this thing back on. Desperate.

You drain your wine, let it fill you, bitter and bloody and absent of any enjoyment. 

He isn’t coming.

Still, you wait, praying you’re wrong.

As the band’s first set comes to a roaring end, the whole place alive with praise, air filled by cheers and clapping hands. Even the waitresses halt where they stand to clap, poised in their practiced intermission, perfect as marble deities each kissed with red lips. The bartender, too, in his stupid bowtie and perfectly gelled hair. Everyone here is having the time of their lives but you, who can’t shake the feeling that you’ve never wanted to be anywhere less than you want to be here right now, alone.

One glance at the menu and all you see are the dollar signs that’d gut your bank account, send you back into the overdraft you’ve just paid off. 

You sigh, try to make a game of silver linings. 

At least you won’t have to pay for some stuffy meal.

At least you won’t have to watch the waitress fall in love with Javier the second he sits down.

At least you won’t have to call a cab because you’re too buzzed to drive.

At least you won’t be up late enough to be fucked tomorrow at work.

At least you don’t have to wear these stupid, pointy shoes until the little hours.

Needless to say, you lose the game. No amount of silver brightens the rift widening to a chasm through your chest. Hollowing you out. Splitting you in two.

One more glass, then the next time the waitress swings by, you wave the white flag and she hastily brings your receipt. Obscene, for three glasses of wine and an hour and a half spent watching pleasure flame in strangers’ eyes, but you pay for it. You take the loss and its drowning weight. You carry it.

“Do you have a—” you start to ask, as the waitress takes your bills, but she cuts you off, already nodding.

“Course, sugar,” she says, and points one lacquered nail in the direction of the bar. As if rehearsed, the bartender swipes his crisp white towel along the right wing of the polished bartop, revealing a phone on the wall behind him. You nod, thank her, and are so grateful that the bartender ducks into the back as if he just now has remembered something urgent in the other room that you consider crying. 

Chucho always picks up on the third ring. Reliable, steady. Like you.

“It’s me,” you say, when he’s on the line.

“Oh honey,” he replies.

Behind you: clapping again, except this time the band’s taking five. When you turn, the plastic phone pressed clammy to your cheek, someone’s down on one knee beside their table with a ring.

You close your eyes.

“Just—tell me he’s not in a ditch somewhere,” you say to Chucho. “Just need to know he’s, I don’t know, accounted for.”

Not dead, is what you mean. Not passed out, drunk, in a ditch, is what you mean. Not blackout somewhere without you to catch him when he leaps. Without you to carry him home.

There stretches—beneath the drone of jubilation marking the best day of someone else’s life—the long, brooding quiet in which Chucho remains silent on the other line. When he speaks next, it’s in the middle of a sudden piano solo. Celebration, or their next set, doesn’t matter. You don’t hear shit. Have to plug your open ear with your hand.

“Sorry, once more?”

Crackling static. A slow, apologetic breath.

“Told him to tell you, sweetheart,” he repeats. “Would’a called if I knew he hadn’t and saved you the trip.”

Not dead. The first real silver lining. You don’t so much breathe as you deflate.

“Kid took that job,” Chucho sighs. “He flew down this morning.”

THIRTY-SIX

You love him, and when you wake in the warm arms of morning he’s long, long gone. Already a thousand miles skyward, Colombia-bound, returning once more to the jaws of something that wants him buried and dead.

There’s no note, but you knew there wouldn’t be. Javier never writes anything down, never leaves you any proof. Last photo of you together must be from college, early on. Any presence he’s had in your life since then is smoke—it dissipates with the wave of his smooth, freckled hand. Gone, like he was never here at all.

Gone, like he never kissed you.

Gone, like he never picked you.

Gone, like he’ll never come back again.

FORTY

You love him, but it’s been four years. Nothing’s the same; it can’t be.

Except for you. Not just in your love, but in your being. A lighthouse for better and worse: beacon in any storm, buried on land. Immovable. Still living thirty minutes from the house of your girlhood, ever accessible, predictable, and lodged in the filth of all that has birthed and broken you. Entirely, utterly, incapable of leaving. Trapped in the case of your unshed skin.

Today is the equinox for the red and dying. Autumn at last unfurling its cool tendrils, usurping the summer’s reign. Air sweet and temperate, tinged with the promise of showers. You—running late, neck sore, caffeine-deficient—hustle the gravel tongue of Chucho’s drive, arms heavy with a batch of groceries. An old habit you never kicked—his hip’s been fine eight months now but you still come around every other Sunday with groceries to save him the trouble, craving his company. His calloused hand soothing your back in small circles, telling you everything’s gonna be fine without uttering a word. 

You dig out the key you’ve had since sixth grade from the void of your pocket. Not graceful, but you don’t drop it. The key wasn’t Javier’s idea, but his mother’s—a woman who took one look at you and felt exactly what you did. Eternal. Took the key off her own ring and handed it over, said she’d make herself another copy. 

“Anytime.” That’s what she’d said to you, eleven and heart scared as a rabbit’s by how much more the Peña house felt like home than your own. Her key, passed to your palm, was warm from her hand. 

Now in your own it’s warm again. Like a piece of her still lives in there, same as the rosary in your car. 

“Chucho,” you call into the house, when you’ve let yourself in. Late morning light bars the old wood floors. A gem, this house. Worn as it is welcoming. All broken in leather that’s butter to the touch and floorboards that croak like frogs. As you toe out of your shoes, you huff, your shoulders already easing into their right positions just by walking in the door. 

No sign of him yet, but that isn’t strange. Could be outside already, sleeves rolled to his elbows and hat low over his eyes. Still, as you haul the groceries down the hall, you call out again. 

“I’ve had the second worst morning of my life. Come take your food, viejo.”

While you wait, you set the bags in the kitchen, plastic crinkling, the burnt roast of coffee still rich in the air. The smell of cut grass weaves through the vented window. Rosy, this room, at this time of day. Blushed by the old lace curtains that have colored with age. There’s a kind of charm to a house like this—lived in, loved in—that you’ve never felt anywhere you’ve lived. 

You’re tucking eggs into the fridge when the floor ribbits upstairs, dragging a grin across your face. Coming home. That’s what this place feels like, when you come to visit Chucho and he insists on making you tea even though by the time he gets to you, you’re usually pouring him a mug of his own. 

There he comes now, you think, as you smile into the fridge. A man who ought to get some of the credit for raising you. You listen to him descend the creaking stairs one slow foot at a time as you toss old food from the forgotten corners of his refrigerator, replacing it with what’s vibrant, green, and new.

But you aren’t really listening. Not all the way. 

If you were, you’d know the second those feet hit the ground floor that they aren’t the footsteps of Chucho at all. Wrong Peña.

“Second worst?”

Then a long whistle. You turn.

Javier, not Chucho, stands at the foot of the stairs. Four years older than last you saw him, sober and smiling, brown eyes glinting shyly. Beautiful, same as always, but what did you expect. Wearing a white button up with long sleeves rolled just like his dad, though decidedly more unbuttoned—if he were closer, you’d see the freckles on his chest, his neck. The spots you once connected like knowing him was a game. 

Are those the same jeans he was wearing, that night in your bed? Better not to linger, wonder. Wondering is a terrible thing.

Whatever’s on your face melts Javier’s smile clean off. 

He’s put it together, then. He knows what the worst morning was.

You’ve gone eight years apart, but these last four feel like decades. There’s a wisp of silver at his temples that wasn’t there before.

“You’re home,” you hear yourself say.

He clenches one hand, fidgeting fingers. Guilty, then. Sad, then. Nervous, then.

You wonder if he’s reading you the same. If you still live side by side, on the same page.

“Yeah,” Javier says, hardly louder than a breath.

And you are running, rushing. Already against him, arms thrown, anger slinking back to the bottom of its well. For the first time in your lives, Javier doesn’t immediately return your touch. He stands for two long seconds like a statue in your arms as his heart smacks against his chest and into yours. 

You hold him tighter. Four years collapse like a stack of playing cards. He feels exactly the same, like he belongs in your arms. 

When he comes to himself, your feet lift until only your toes brush against the floor—that’s how tightly he grabs you, how wholly. You hang, held in his arms as he presses his face into your neck. 

“Smell good,” he mumbles after a while, lips brushing your neck in a way that could be accidental or entirely on purpose—either way, you don’t care.

You wind one hand into his hair. It’s shorter now, just a little off the back. The next breath that leaves you is sharp, almost a laugh. 

“You smell different,” you say, and pull your head off his shoulder to get a look at him properly. 

Javier keeps you where you are, not quite on the floor, held tight to his chest. Grinning in that boyish way. You press your thumb to his dimple and gasp—having figured it out.

“You quit,” you say, eyes wide. 

His are so close. Deep, rich, inevitable—flickering between yours. He rolls them, caught by you so easily, and rocks his jaw, smacking his gum as he sets you down to shrug. Rearranging his face to appear indifferent, but you see right through it anyway.

“Tryin’ it out,” he admits.

Neither of you let go, not yet. His thumbs stroking your waist where his hands have settled; yours moving to his temples to rake through the soft of his curls, introducing yourself to the newfound grays you don’t recognize.

“Gettin’ old, Javi,” you tease.

Then his hands rise to cover yours and a moment before they do—mere atoms away from touch—you think he looks how he did in your hallway freshman year, right before he kissed you. But his hands envelop yours and you watch his mouth twitch. Not up, not to the side. Down. His brows dipping for a millisecond as he puts it together.

You’ve forgotten. You forget all the time—hardly feel it anymore after six months of wearing the ring. Used to drive you crazy, always spinning the wrong way around, but it’s become just a part of your hand.

When you try to draw away Javier’s grip locks them in a vice, pulling them from his face to look down at your fingers where, on your left hand, sits a gold band. Two tiny diamonds bracketing a sapphire—not an heirloom, but it’s pretty. Beautiful, even. You’ve come to love it.

“Shit,” Javier mumbles, his brows high and chin hung down as he ghosts his fingers over the gem in disbelief. “Look at you.”

You hardly hear it. What you really hear is a reverie, a ghost. A ship that passed too far from your harbor, scared off by the beacon of you. Warned of your lethal shores. Pensé que me casaría contigo. Rambled when he was drunk and hollow and out of his mind. A whispered confession spoken in those tiny hours he spent in your bed in which nothing beyond the mattress existed but the two of you, intertwined.

I thought I’d marry you.

But he didn’t. Javier left without the grace of a goodbye. Now he stands with your hands in his, thumbing the sapphire of a ring someone else put on your hand while he was gone. Four years in which you had no idea if he’d come back, or when, or for how long. No idea if he’d ever want to see or speak to you again. 

Your mouth, dry, deserted. Your hands shaking in his—you have to ask. Break this moment in which he seems unable to take his eyes off the stony, cobalt blue.

“How long are you back?” you ask softly.

Javier lets go of your hands to rub the back of his neck and takes a tiny step away from you. 

You know the answer the moment he moves, but you let him say it anyway. You let him cut that tiny hole in your chest that’ll bleed dry your heart.

His smile is mirthless, doomed. Like he’s putting it all together in his head.

“For good,” Javier says, staring at the floor, then the window beyond your shoulder, into the yard. Anywhere but at you. “For good, this time.”

tag list & some mutuals:

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[darlingjmiller]

Pedro Pascal presenting Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

“Kieran Culkin beat the shit of me”

[devilmademewriteit]

Dark Paradise

part 3 of Salvatore

read part 1, Salvatore, here

read part 2, Playing Dangerous, here

pairing: javier peña x afab!fem!reader

summary: left alone in javi’s bed, you go looking for distractions. finding them only leads you further into his world: a world of danger and violence, where no one can protect anyone.

warnings: rough sex/smut (fingering, fem penetration, super SUPER light choking) so 18+ only content; pet names (cariño, hermosa, querida, sweetheart, baby) afab fem reader; reader is American; mentions of hair pulling; allusions to SA; attempted SA against reader (not by javi); violence against reader (hitting, slapping, manhandling); smoking; dubcon (power imbalance, trauma sex??).

word count: 7k+

no use of y/n in this fic

u guys. it is here. and the most exciting part is I can already promise u a part 4!! pls be mindful that this part is darker than the rest. it has many triggering themes, so many sure u read the warnings & stay on the safe side of things.

as always, love u all so effing much. feedback, reblogs, comments & asks are always appreciated, & don’t forget to join the taglist in my pinned post !

-em<3

—

No one compares to you. I’m scared that you won’t be waiting on the other side.

- Dark Paradise

“Girl, where did you go?”

You’re on the landline with Carrie, one of the few half-friends you'd made living in Medellín, thighs sore and bruised from the backseat-loving you’d received the night before. While Javi’s at work, you’re on (his words) 'house arrest,' and lounging alone in his apartment feels eerily quiet. The occasional car drives by—you try not to listen for the sound of scraping tires.

So, around 9:30, you’d decided to fill the silent space with a bit of vapid conversation, realizing that last night's antics (and your unexplained disappearance) may have caused a bit of confusion.

You start by filling Carrie in on the generalities: the guns, the car, and the rescue, at first planning to leave out the more… personal details.

Like the one you'd filed away under 'Riding a Cop to High Heaven in the Backseat of his Jeep.'

You also leave out the part where, afterwards, you’d kicked off your heels by his front door, let down your hair in a sloppy, half-drunk movement, made a beeline to the familiar crinkles and folds of his unmade bed, and swiftly passed out in his embrace.

Oh, to fall asleep between those arms for the rest of eternity.

Given your more cynical—okay, borderline self-denying—approach to life, you felt downright ashamed of how much you’d enjoyed it. How much you’d enjoyed him and all of his lasting touches.

And in the morning… Javi’s hardness biting into your hip was a more efficient wake-up-call than the trial nuke sirens back home; the soft kisses laid down the length of your neck and the long, lazy fingers creeping down your abdomen had you surging to consciousness with embarrassing speed. You’d shivered into wakefulness, flattened against his chest.

“Good morning, cariño.” His words were molasses, melted caramel, thick and damp with sleep.  

“Hmmmh,” was your only reply, sloping into your highest octaves as his hand sank to push aside your already-ruined underwear, dipping lower to toy with the switch only he knew how to turn on best. Arching into his spine, last night’s dress crumpled up above your waist, leaving him to feel more, more, more of you.  

“Thought it would take more convincing,” he breathed against your shoulder, a breeze of late august air.

“Wh’time z’it?”  

“We have time, cariño, we have time.”

When his digits pulled a moan from your lips, no other answers really mattered. He’d loosed that deep, guttural rumble of approval that made your chest swell with pride, your legs part in service and need.  

“Can you hold this leg up for me, baby? S’all you need to do.” He’d helped fold up your knee, and you’d turned to meet him with pleading, drooping eyes, dutifully contorting to mold into the shape of his body. “Perfect, baby, good job,” a rough kiss to your temple, “n’I can do the rest, hermosa—I’ll do the rest.”  

He slid in effortlessly, harmonizing to your sigh of relief with a “shit, s’wet,” and sheathing his cock between the folds of your morning slick. Brows furrowing, mouth falling open, you had every detail of your bliss etched on your expression, all for the beautiful man looming over you. “Always fuckin’ askin’ for it, huh, sweetheart?” He'd mused. “Woke me up moanin’ in your sleep, cariño—dreamin’ about last night?”  

An “mhmm,” was all you could muster. Javi’s hips rolled against your ass, and the resulting feeling of overwhelming fullness had you swearing you were still in reverie. When he paused, snaked his arms under your neck and around your waist, and pulled you flush against his chest, you remember it feeling like a dirty, desperate hug.  

“M’sore, Javi,” you’d whined at the stretch of your opening, the continued drag of Javi’s fingers against your aching, weary clit.  

“S’no excuse, baby,” he’d grumbled into the shell of your ear, pressing hard into that tender bundle of nerves. “Gotta get you used to it.”

A harrumph as he’d turned up the intensity, punishing you for your protests. “Y-you’re a mean-mean man, Javier Peña.”

Soft, gravelly laughter danced, twirled, traveled along the dip of your neck. “‘N you’re gonna come so hard for this mean, mean man.”  

He was right, bringing you to the brink of orgasm with the thick, rough pads of his fingertips, the tip of his cock sliding up and down, over and over, in and out of your guts.  

“Yeah—yes—m’gonna come for you, Javi,” you’d admitted.  

But he’d stolen his magical digits away, used them to turn your jaw, to square your face off with his own concentrated, lust-filled expression. “Show me cariño, yes—gonna be picturin’ that pretty lil’ face aaaaall fuckin’ day,” and you’d tumbled over the edge the moment he’d slid back down to the apex of your thighs, drowning in the darkness of his cinnamon-brown irises and the tantalizing circles—drawn from memory—against your clit.  

“J-javi—it feels—feels s-so good—”  

“I know, hermosa, s’just what you needed, fuck—”

He was already close enough, but your climaxing trembles and your whining, choked gasps had him wrapping his hand around your throat, pushing you further and further down the length of his tensing shaft.  

“Shit—you feel like heaven, baby, so good for me—”  

His release came fast and hard, leaking his hot spend into you, painting your insides like brushstrokes on canvas with his final thrust.  

He seemed to lay there for forever, softening between your walls as sweet slumber carried you off once more. “Go back to sleep, baby,” he’d advised against your shoulder (as if you’d needed any kind of encouragement), “Did such a good job; go back to sleep.”  

It was easy to accede to his command.  

You’d come to for a half-second as he’d placed, fully dressed, the clink of his belt and the crisp waft of his cologne rousing you to near-consciousness, a deliberate, lingering kiss to your forehead. “Don’t answer the door for anyone else, okay, hermosa?”

“Huh? Oh—mhm.”

And you’d vaguely registered a low laugh. “Good to know you’re so well behaved when you’re half-asleep.” His finger traced your cheekbone, dragged down to pull teasingly at your bottom lip. “Means I’ll have to keep fuckin’ you to the point of exhaustion.”

“Mhm—please." Squished and mumbled, guttural and breathless.  

Another soft laugh, and then echoes of receding footsteps.  

Waking up a few hours later, you’d peeled your sticky thighs apart, confused at first by the mysterious pool of wetness between your legs.

You didn’t bother cleaning it up, already feeling the loss of your DEA officer. You somehow chose to dial Carrie's number to kill some time on your day off (or else, you feared, you’d have quickly found another use for your bored fingers).

Being alone in his room leaves you feeling very young. Lying in his bed, thinking about the past night’s events… you feel giddy, like a highschool girl after her first time, and anxious, on edge without Javier’s protection.

You just want to gush about it.

“Do you remember that DEA agent? The Texan?”

You barely have time to finish your thought before Carrie’s cutting your question short.

“Sexy Javi?”

She giggles. You snort indelicately into the receiver.

“I never called him that.”

“You didn’t have to,” she returns. “I deduced it from the amount of times you ranted to me about his… callers.”

You fiddle with the telephone chord, smiling artfully to yourself. “I’m in his bed right now.”

There’s a slap. No doubt the sound of a hand clapping over a set of slack lips. And then—

“I thought he lived outside the city?!”

It’s a strange reaction. You’d expected something a bit more on-topic, confused at your friend’s preoccupation with Peña’s living quarters when you’d just divulged such an out-of-character, personal detail.

Well, at least the enthusiasm is there.

“No, he lives right by the embassy.” You respond, rolling lazily onto your side. Opening the top drawer of his bedside table, you grimace to yourself, taking in (on top of the empty bottle of men’s cologne and an old, broken watch) a box of tissue paper, a pair of handcuffs (not regulation), a smatter of sex toys, and a few scattered, unopened condoms. “That new… fancy building on the corner,” you continue, swiping a few tissues between your legs, trying not to giggle at the teasing Javi was in for tonight, “Carrie—are you seriously not gonna ask how it was?”

There’s a pause. You hear a rustle in the background; the sound reminds you of students in class, whipping out pens and notebooks.

Is she taking notes?

“Tell. Me. Everything.”

That reaction felt more appropriate.

It all comes bursting out of you—the night out, Javi’s rescue, your backseat escapade. Carrie’s an ideal audience, gasping and ‘oooh’-ing and ‘girl!’-ing at all the right moments.

When you get to the end of your tale, your cheeks hurt from smiling so much. Carrie pries for more and more specifics, keeping you on the phone for close to an hour. You don't give her everything (did she really need an approximation of his size?) but you do make sure to remind her, often, that Javier Peña was an excellent fuck.

Finally, the conversation dies down. Sitting up, you realize just how desperately you’re in need of a shower. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, the smell of sex, tequila, and Javi’s day-old cologne clinging to your skin, but his place gets hot, and you hadn't anticipated the need to pack deodorant in your purse during last night's going-out prep.

Either way, Carrie's become distracted, the length between your words and her responses growing with every passing minute. You notice a Spanish conversation taking place in the background, no doubt the reason for her decreasing attentiveness.

You’re about to hang up, launching into a polite, “alright girl, I’ll let you go” when she goes back in for more.

“Is he home now?”

She blurts it out, and you're a bit taken aback. Frankly, the urgency of her tone feels a little jarring.

“Um, no,” you answer, uncertain, stretching out your vowels, “I think he went in early today.”

“Good.”

Her clipped tone continues to confuse you. It’s… not playful anymore. It’s administrative.

Commercial.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh,” a flutter of shrill laughter, “Just wanted to make sure he’s not listening in on our—”

There’s a knock at the door before she can finish. You call out just a sec! automatically, pulling on your rumpled clothes from the night before as the receiver tumbles onto the unmade bed.

It’s only once you’ve lumbered over, wiped the grogginess from your eyes, once you’ve unlocked the door and twisted the handle—it’s only once your head is covered with a thick, scratchy fabric, once the world’s gone dark and a cry of surprise is wrenched from your throat—that you recall Javi’s warning:

Don’t open the door for anyone else.  

Something else takes over. Something primal. Fight, fight, fight. Find the flesh and punish it, scramble for purchase into any detectable, softer areas. Squirm until your legs give out, 'till your knees hit the floor and the beginnings of bruises scatter across your burning skin in a plethora of vulnerable places.

But when you thrash around like that, make sure your head doesn’t hit the doorframe.

Because then? It’s lights out.

—

The first thing you notice is the smell.  

Weed and tobacco. Wet weed and tobacco. It’s not a smell you’re accustomed to (you worked for the DEA, for crying out loud). It makes your already-pounding head spin, so it takes a second before you remember that you’re not safe—you’re not at home, you’re not at Javi’s, and you’re not with Javi.

Instincts kick in. Your stomach aches with fear, lighting you up from the inside, energizing every inch of your body. You wrench, pull, struggle against the restraints suffocating your wrists, binding your hands around the back of a rickety, wooden chair. You can’t kick at anything, either. Your ankles are crossed, squished on top of each other and secured by a firm length of (what you assume to be) rope.

And then the canvas is unceremoniously yanked off of your head, taking a few hairs from your scalp along with it.

You squint, blinking into the dim light, slowly adjusting to your surroundings: some sort of musty basement with concrete walls and floors, decorated by nothing except a couple of small, rectangular windows near the too-high ceilings. It’s completely empty—save for your company.

One, two, three strangers. All men. All Cartel, by the looks of them.

And all positively leering.  

The one nearest you, holding the bag in his hands, speaks down to you. It’s quick and harsh, mocking and cruel. Spanish and unintelligible.

Your hatred towards the captor blinds you; it coaxes the animal out of its cage. You spit: “I don’t speak Spanish, motherfucker.”

(Even if you did, the adrenaline coursing through your veins wouldn’t allow you much room for comprehension).

From the shadows, another man appears. He lumbers over to you, and you notice the peculiarity of his European-looking hat as he squats down to level with you.

He clicks his tongue, dousing you with a look of disapproval. “That’s not very nice, hermosa.”

You shiver. Javi had called you that before, many times. And even though it sounded totally different coming from this foul man’s mouth, shrouded under the veil of a thick, Spanish accent, it sticks.

You hold your tongue, biting it to keep from sobbing. The glint in his eye, visible behind his glasses, moves from playfulness to exasperated ire.

He sighs, stands, and grabs your hair, tilting your head back harshly to look down at you. “You’re very hard to catch, you know that?” He muses, darkness trickling across his features. “But you’re alone now, Americana. No DEA—no Javier Peña to protect you.”

He makes a mockery of his name, oozing cockiness as it comes spitting out of his smirk. You glare up at him, simmering anger and bubbling fear claiming you. Would they go after Javi?

No. They wouldn’t dare.

Only an American like yourself—low-value, replaceable, unnoticeable—was expendable.

“What do you want from me?”

He smiles, releasing your head and taking a step back.

“You’re the assistant, aren’t you?” And that deceptively sweet tone is back, frightening you more than his rage. “We need directions, hermosa. You’ve been in all the government buildings—we know, we watched you. Why don’t you give us some assistance,” he pauses, leaning down towards you, “And tell us where your evidence against Pablo Escobar is filed.”

You snort, unimpressed, shocked, and a little humoured by his little monologue. This was what they were after?

This was why you'd been fearing for your life?

A fucking… map?

“Find someone else. I don’t know shit.”

It’s honestly true. The bastards could not be barking up a more wrong tree. For all their criminal genius, they hadn’t managed to catch the fact that you really, truly didn’t give a flying fuck about the particulars of your job.

But if this was about Escobar—the Pablo Escobar—then these were men from the Medellín cartel. The same Medellín cartel that left scores of expendable bodies in its wake, that bombed, assassinated, and tortured government workers like they were no more than rats in a science lab.

You weren’t the end-all, be-all of this operation.

No, you were just another lead.

A lead that (only you knew) led to jack-all. Unless they were scrambling to learn about the best places to go out dancing or the worst brands of moisturizer, you had very little to offer the thugs.

The one with the strange hat—the ringleader, you decide—shares a smile with his co-conspirators, and you begin to regret the arrogance of your statement.

“There are many ways we can do this,” he warns, voice sloping down to a dangerous hum. “It can be easy…” and he lowers a hand to his belt buckle, setting every cell in your body on fire, “Or hard.”

It‘s a plea to God more than a question for your captor, your desperate, self-pitying: “Why me?” It can't be above a whisper, but the asshole responds anyway.

“It’s more enjoyable when we get to work with something pretty.” A dark laugh. “Who’s going to come looking for you, hermosa? Your family? Your friends? Your… government?” He clicks his tongue again, looking down at you in mock concern. “Like I said, we’ve been watching. You have a habit of disappearing. Running away.”

Figures.

Figures that the reason you’d wound up with your life on the line, your body in danger, was because of you. Once again, it boiled down to the lack of attachments you’d curated over the years, passing from one thing to another, quick on your feet the second they hit solid ground. For God’s sake, the only reason you’d made it this long in Medellín was because it hadn’t managed to bore you yet.

Figures that the closest thing to stability you’d been able to find was in the crime capital of the world. It was poetically honest, laughably ironic.

Of course, the American government would assume you’d fucked off—just another ditzy contractor swept up in the thrill of a south-American life.

The other part held water, too—no one would come looking for you. Your boss might huff about ‘these flighty secretaries, can’t hold ‘em down for anything,’ but beyond that, your disappearance would cause less than a stir.  

Somehow, that thought comforted you. The lack of collateral, the lack of another’s suffering… very little harm would befall the world in the wake of your absence. Peace was beginning to crest upon your settling soul. And, either way, you’d worked in this line of work for long enough to know that your death warrant had been signed the very second they’d seen you as a target.

You give the bastards what they want? You die.

You hold off? You die.

All things considered, you resign yourself, making up your mind.

Still, your defiant voice quivers as you say it.

“Fuck you.”

The ringleader smiles, like a predator cornering its prey, taking that first bite into hard-earned flesh. Your brain responds, screaming warnings in big letters, in flashing red ink. He barks an order to his underlings in Spanish, and the other two men come forward, roughly undoing the holds along your ankles, your wrists.

“Get the fuck off of me!”  

But they don’t listen, yanking you upright and shoving you onto the ground. Your vision becomes hazy. Something takes over, a protective instinct, perhaps, barring you from your own body. Distantly, you observe yourself fighting, but really all you feel is beyond. The words ‘I am not here, this is not happening’ wash over you over and over again, like a cleansing, salt-water wave.

Hands on cement. Clothes torn, destroyed—the cold barrel of a gun to your head, a man barking orders, hitting, slapping—and right as the worst is about to happen, everything just…

Stops.

It’s like they’re spellbound, bugs frozen in amber.

You hear the cause of it well after your torturers do. Footsteps upstairs, and gunshots, screams followed by the definite sounds of a creeping squadron.

The men get messy. Scrambling around, they gather their options. In your dazed periphery, you watch their eyes latch onto one of those open windows, 8 or 9 feet up from the ground.

A hushed conversation ensues. You're familiar enough with the more violent side of the Spanish vocabulary to string together their meaning.

“Shoot her? — no, the noise, they’ll find us faster — kill her? — too long — take her? — too messy — we have to go, we have to go, we have to go.”

Your ruined shirt is shoved down your throat, and then you’re gagging on it, ankles bound once more, shaking and naked on the freezing concrete. The trio uses the little wooden chair to frantically sneak out of the window.

It would be downright comical if you weren’t so terrified.

Soon, you’re alone, choking on cotton and wriggling to flatten your back against the wall. Centuries pass before the movement upstairs graduates to the basement below.

Relief doesn’t grace you. Any man—DEA, cartel, or Colombian police—would likely perform the same violence as your previous captors had planned to. A naked girl, roughed up and completely unprotected, in a dark, hidden basement, totally at their mercy… Shit. You were basically an invitation. A free meal, offered up to a different, hungry crowd.

You just pray that this one might be gentler.

The stairs creak under the certain weight of bodies in motion.

Tears run down the side of your face, dripping down from your temple onto the ground below. You compress into a ball, making yourself as small as possible.

The echoes grow louder, closer and closer. At this point, you just hope they’ll assume you’re an enemy or get trigger-happy and give you a quick taste of lead. Put you out of your misery.

Giving up was well within your comfort zone.

Someone gasps when they see you, and a single name hurtles through the space.

An out-of-commission part of your mind recognizes it—the name—knows it as a comfort. Still, you only tremble, trying to disconnect yourself from what must be a wishful, crafted, deceitful version of reality.

Then someone else comes forward. Your eyes, weary of keeping you in the dark, fling open just in time to watch a tall, dark-haired man push through the crowd of soldiers. You watch his expression—shock to rage, rage to relief, and then rage all over again.

He rushes you, falling to his knees before your wrecked form.

His first move is to wrench the fabric from your mouth. You croak out the most desperate sob of relief, all those stifled, unvoiced expressions of terror tumbling out in great-big-heaves.

“Are you hurt?” He asks.

“No.” You respond.

“Did they…?”

“No.”

Javi tears his big doe-eyes, filled with worry, away from yours, twisting to impatiently address the frozen crowd of four or five behind him. “Can somebody take these fuckin’ ties off?”

Switchblades slice through twine. Someone brings you a blanket, and Javi bundles you up in it, gathering you and lifting you in his arms. You don’t resist, clinging around his neck and hiding in the comfort of his shoulder.

“Hermosa—”

You regret the way you flinch. “Please—please don’t call me that anymore.”

“Okay.” He doesn’t ask questions, sounding a little softer, a little more unsure when he presses on, muffling the desperate edge to his tone. “Did you see where they went?”

“The window. Out the window.”

Most of the rest take to that almost immediately, scattering to start on their chase. Javi delivers a set of orders in his native tongue.

Then, he grows silent, carrying you through the house with two soldiers in the lead. “Close your eyes, okay? You don’t wanna see this.” But now that they’re open, you can’t seem to shut them. You only glimpse flashes of the upstairs area. Tables covered in paper, glass contraptions and coke, so much coke, which is almost more impressive than the quantity of blood splattered against the peeling walls.

And Carrie.

Carrie with half her brains hanging out, long, dark, red-soaked hair fanning around her crown like a rotten halo, lounging on the couch, fingers splayed and palms to the sky as if she were ready to wrap them around a glass of white wine—as if she were ready to catch up on girl-talk.

What’s Carrie doing here?

Should I ask her?

She’s dead.  

No, she’s not. She’s right there. She was waiting for me to be done so we could catch up. That’s just how she always sits—it’s just the scoliosis.

That’s why she always showed up so late to the club. She… she couldn’t dance too long because of the scoliosis.

You’re still debating whether or not Carrie would be up for a bit of gossip, another debrief, when big, strong arms lower you into the passenger seat of a Jeep Cherokee.

Javier buckles you in.

“We can’t go to your place—that’s…” and you trail off weakly, throat burning with effort. “That’s where they took me.”

He nods, his face a complete mask of concentration.

But you know him.

He’s holding everything back. You appreciate him for that, never wanting to hear a man shout for the rest of your cursed time on Earth.

“Steve’s, then.”

It’s your turn to nod.

—

Javier drives in complete and total silence, only speaking the occasional clipped sentence into his radio. Despite your vulnerability, despite your overwhelming gratitude, you feel guilty for taking him away from his work, from his team. For forcing him to rescue you once again.

For sure, he’s angry. Would he have to move? Find a new place? Leave all his stuff at the old one? Would a better captive have paid better attention, taken note of the exact direction her kidnappers had taken off in after clearing the window?

Soon, you’re settled against a couch, the light from the opposing window breaking in and dancing across Javi’s face. A blonde woman—fiery, familiar, concerned—hands you a glass of water.

Javi watches you, eyebrows notched together, lips drawn into a thin line as you take a slow sip in silence. The liquid slides down your throat, cooling and soothing the rips and tears there.

And they both won’t stop staring. Truly, their joint study makes you self-conscious, watching on with unapologetic intent as you shiver under the scratchy blanket.

Finally (thankfully), Steve's wife—Connie, you recall—speaks.

“You can go, Javi. I'll take it from here.”

“No.”

She looks borderline offended at his line in the sand.

“I don’t think she’s in any shape to talk, Peña.” It’s authoritative, protective, clearly marked with harboured resentment.

She'd make a good mom.

He scoffs. “I’m not gonna make her talk, Connie. Just don’t wanna leave her like... this.”

Connie looks confused. They share a glance, and an eventual understanding passes over her expression. In fact, even in your distressed state, you’re almost certain you catch a hint of a smile.

“Well if you’re both staying, we’ll need food.”

Javi nods absentmindedly, lighting up a smoke. You look away, still feeling the weight of his eyes boring into your ducked head.

She clears her throat. “I’ll be back in an hour or so. Remember to lock the door, Javi.”

Then, swinging her coat on, she traces an awkward line out of the apartment.

Silence flits across the room. The agent continues to study you from his seat at the counter across the room.

“Are you okay?”

You pick at your nails, internally asking yourself the same question.

“I’m just glad you were there,” you muster up, looking up at his softened, warm gaze. Concern etches a couple of fresh lines on his face.

Javi nods, taking a long drag. “Always, sweetheart. I’m glad I was there, too.”

You shiver at the thought of what could have happened if he and his team had showed up just a few minutes later. What shape he would have found you in, or if you’d ever permit yourself to feel the touch of a man again. Of anyone again.

“Why were you there?”

The question comes out of nowhere, bursting out the moment you realize that you hadn’t yet bothered to ask him how he’d pulled off yet another well-timed rescue.

It couldn’t have been in answer to your prayers—those had never worked for you before.

“Carillo’s been following Escobar’s cousin for a while. Zeroed in on the neighbourhood, but we spent all morning doing searches. Honestly,” he breaks off for a moment, rubbing at his temples, “It was just damn luck that we found you when we did. Wish I could say it wasn't, but it was. We were gettin’ ready to call it off. I had… no idea you weren’t at home.”

He blames himself for it. You can tell. In turn, you blame yourself for that—for his misguided, self-inflicted anger.

There’s more left unsaid.

“My friend—I called her this morning. From your place. She was there. She was… dead. I think.”

Javi doesn’t react, evidence of the years of gore, wreckage, and betrayal he'd witnessed.

You swallow, soldiering on.

“I told her. I told her where I was. Could she… could she have told them?”

Is she the reason this happened to me?

Slowly, lips pressed around his cigarette, Javi nods. “I’m sorry,” he barely mumbles.

Strangely enough, you’re not. That’s what you say: “I’m not.” And it’s true. “She was upstairs when it was all happening. I’m glad she’s dead.”

Now, he looks at you with a consideration that swells into a kind of respect. Not a respect, no not respect. A knowing. A new kind of understanding, of equal footing.

You meet him head-on with it, basking in your retribution, revelling in the immediate justice she'd been served. You’d mourn the person you thought she was when your wounds weren’t so open, so fresh.

"They wanted directions, Javi," you suddenly blurt out, voice hoarse, "Isn't that insane? They were gonna... they were gonna do that for directions. Not even the evidence, just fucking directions-"

Javi lifts his hands in the air, signalling for you to slow down. Normally, it would make you want to tear his arrogant head off. Now, however, you just do, although the silence isn't very comforting. After a moment, you can tell there's something Javi’s been avoiding, something he’s holding in. The agent clears his throat, finally calling it quits on his tiptoe-ing around the subject.

“Cariño," he begins, "I know you told me earlier, but I... I gotta be sure. Did they hurt you in… any way?”

God, he sounds so deeply wary, unable even to speak his fear into existence. You shake your head no, prompting his shoulders to relax.

“Okay. Good,” he breathes, crossing his arms and looking down at the rug. “Don’t think I could…”

Panic ripples through your frame.

'Doesn’t think he could' what? Bear to look at me, knowing the enemy had been where he’d been, done what he’d done? Touch me in the same grooves they'd left on my skin? Javi’s not that kind of man—is he?

“Don’t think I could forgive myself if anything were to happen to you under my watch.”

The rush of anxiety quickly dissipates, replaced by a stifling bloom of admiration and adoration across your chest. Like soft tendrils, warming your shivering body from within.

You smile self-consciously, scoff, and meet his eyes. “I wasn’t ‘under your watch,’ Javi. I opened the door. It was my fault.”

He raises his eyebrows, huffing a breath before ashing his dart, rising, carving a path towards the couch-cushion next to you and taking your glass of water from between your hands. It clinks as he sets it on the table. Taking your unsteady hands between his hardened palms, he coaxes you into meeting his golden eyes.

“It’s not your fault, herm—” a pause as he corrects himself, noticing your flinch, “—cariño. It’s not your fault.”

He waits for your nod of acknowledgement before pulling you into his arms. You let yourself go limp, dragged into the plushness of the couch and the firmness of his chest.

He lays a kiss to your forehead. He fidgets with your hair. He traces long, lazy lines up and down your spine.

How had you gone from that youthful giddiness this morning to this dark, anxious wreck in a matter of hours? It wasn’t even two o’clock yet.

The comfort your agent provides is good—will always be good—but you want more. Every inch of attention he gives you is just another step away from that cold basement, a foot towards freedom.

Time heals all wounds, and you want a distraction while you face those excruciating seconds. Something to move it along. Something to keep you busy, to keep the harrowing images at bay.

So you tilt your head up. Finding his lips, you press into him, shuddering when the rough hairs of his mustache tickle your top lip. When your body asks for more, when your tongue meets his and your hand drops to his thigh, Javi tenses, pulling back and breaking off the kiss.

“Sweetheart—you’re not in a good place,” he whispers, lovingly running his fingers through your hair.

You look up at him with eyes full of need, wordlessly begging him to give in. “I am now,” you assure him, tossing a leg over his hips and straddling his body. His expression darkens as you slowly chip away at his resolve, one touch at a time. “I’m with you.”

He smiles, plucking your hands from his chest. Every kiss he lays to your knuckles sends a ripple of electricity up and down your spine. “That right?” He muses between embraces. “That all you need?”

You nod, the pace of your shallow breaths picking up in anticipation. “When you touch me, Javi, it’s like you’re cleaning them off me,” you croon, leaning forward to brush your lips against his jaw.

“You’re in shock, baby,” but his hands defy his words, slipping down to circle your waist, “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

Slowly, deliberately, you lean back to stare directly into his heavy-lidded eyes. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

You feel him tense at that, his body hardening alongside the weight building underneath your thigh. He lets you go on, deft hands pooling onto your hips.

“Get rid of them for me,” you plead, grinding down onto his bulge.

“Make me all yours again.”  

That does it.

His hands shoot up to your face, firmly cupping your cheeks between their heat. Then, Javi’s kissing you harder than before, warming your desire up to a feverish level. You moan into him, turning to putty in his grasp.

He peppers kisses down your jaw and up your neck, allowing you to clumsily untuck his shirt and undo his belt. It’s frantic and needy—it’s pure business. You free his length from the confines of his clothes, heavy breaths mingling when you look down in tandem, hungrily watching your small, delicate hand pumping up and down his cock.

“Fuck,” he groans, his dark crown of cropped curls falling back against the couch, “You make it fuckin’ hard to be a good guy.”

You smile, spreading the slick dribbling at his tip around the head of his cock.

God, the sight of him never gets old.

“Good guys listen, Javi,” you tease, managing to pull off an air of sultriness, “Not just to no—also to yes.”

A lazy, roguish grin spreads across his face. “You are feeling better, aren’t you?” and he knocks a squeal out of you when he cages you in his arms, flipping you over ‘till your back’s digging shapes into the worn-in cushions below. “Gettin’ mouthy already.”

You giggle up at him, but all of your noises dwindle when a few rough fingers push your torn, ruined underwear to the side. You grow especially wordless when one separates your folds and makes its way inside you.

Javi gives you his signature look of condescension, of mock pity.

“What happened, sweetheart?” He taunts, thumbing that aching bundle of nerves. “All the ways I’ve had my dick in you, just this—” he makes a point to curl his fingers towards himself, pressing against the most desire-stricken spot, “—‘n you can’t find your words?”

Your throat won’t open, choking around your own pleasure. Instead, you nod with enthusiasm, desperately clinging onto his forearm. “More.”

He quickly accedes, pushing another long and thick finger inside you. You shudder at the perfect sting—the stretch—as your opening hugs his knuckles. Javi mutters curses to himself, angry and lustful, supervising your writhing form.

“No one else gets to see you like this.” He speaks low, sitting up to work you with both hands. Your body responds without your permission; Javi clicks his tongue and shoves you back down when your hips buck up. “Don’t deserve it,” he continues voicing his thought as if no interruption had occurred, “I’d have to track ‘em down and kill ‘em.”

His tone goes beyond protectiveness, easily veering into the realm of the possessive. “I-I wouldn’t be good f-for them, Javi,” you manage, wanting to comfort him, to calm him, “Wouldn’t—wouldn’t listen.”

“Oh,” he smirks down at you, finally pulling his fingers from your soaked, ready cunt. “Like you listen to me?”

You spread your legs for him, shimmying down until he’s hovering right above you. He strokes himself, taking you in with hunger, playfulness and… something else.

Something like devotion.

A smile. You stroke his jaw. “You come harder when I misbehave.”

He shrugs and nods, a silent, ‘you got me there,' before lining himself up at your entrance.

You whimper, a pathetic, pleading sound, when the head of his cock finds your opening. “Then make sure to misbehave.”  

He rocks inside you, taking note of the way your jaw goes slack, hanging open, and the way your brow furrows, grateful eyes glazing over, showing high praise for that feeling of fullness.  

And he laughs to himself.

“Needy fuckin’ thing,” he coos, settling into a comfortable rhythm. “Beggin’ for cock after bein’ kidnapped. I shouldn’t be feedin' into your crazy, cariño.”

It is crazy. But you don’t care, giggling along to his taunt.

“Just makes me feel so-so good, Javi,” you breathe.

“Yeah?” He coaxes, sitting back to tower over you, pressing your thighs to your calves; the new angle has bliss rippling through your centre, your back arching involuntarily. “What feels good?”

He shoves your hips down, lowering a finger back to your clit.

“Oh—God—y-yourcock—” he nods approvingly at you, beckoning you to go on, “your—your fingers, too.”

He slows his pace, pulling out fully before slamming back inside you.

“Look at it, cariño,” Javi instructs, steadying your hips once more. “Watch me fuck your pretty lil’ pussy.”

You struggle onto your elbows and obey, mouth slack and perpetually open. Pressure builds at your core as you watch every inch of his hard, dark length disappear, over and over, inside the shelter of your body. It’s so dirty, and somehow the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.

“M-made for you, Javi.”

And he moans, an animalistic sound you’d never heard from him before.

“S’right, baby, made just for me.” He flattens his fingers against your clit, applying just the right amount of pressure. “Can you come for me now?”

You nod, grateful for his permission as soon as you start to feel your thighs shake. The tension snaps within you, and you tumble over the edge of your climax with a high pitched whine.

“Good girl,” he praises, low, deep, and bristling with pleasure, “Good fuckin’ girl.”

You ride it out. Javi shows no mercy, squeezing your waist and bouncing your lower half against him. His biceps and shoulders strain against his shirt, the sight making your eyes roll to the back of your head.

After having him a few times, you were well aware of his impressive stamina—Javi wasn’t going to finish without giving you another one. Nonetheless, the overwhelming pleasure has you squirming away from his unrelenting grasp.

He pulls you back against him, steadying you between two forceful hands.

And he fucks you harder.  

“Still remember them, querida? ” He breathes.

You find your voice, using great effort to stammer out a “y-yes."

It's not the correct answer.

Javi growls, “Then I’m not fuckin’ done with you.”

His shirt grazes the insides of your thighs, and you're certain that every part of his form is working to set your skin on fire. A skilled hand wraps around your jaw, and Javi leans over you, lowering his lips to latch around a hard, peaked nipple.

Your whimpers do nothing to stop him. He just keeps rhythmically rocking into you, the head of his cock reaching impossible, beckoning depths.

An almost-sob wracks your lungs. “S’a lot, huh? Takin’ all this cock inside you…” Javi shushes you with feigned sympathy, nipping and suckling at the softest spots at his disposal. “S’okay, baby, s’okay.”

Then he makes his way to your lips, forces you to kiss him—deeply—as your lungs scream for oxygen. He locks your hands above your head in just one of his own, the pressure of his weight the only thing keeping your squirming limbs in place.

And then his mouth is sliding down your jaw, his breaths hot and heavy next to your ear.

“Fuck—can feel you gettin’ close, sweetheart, gonna come again?”

All you can do is nod.

He rolls into you—hard and deep—forcing tears to pull from the outer corners of your eyes.

“S-so good to me,” you manage, seeing pure white as your third orgasm of the day blooms from between your seizing legs.

He groans, freeing your hands (which immediately find stability in the firmness of his shoulders) to clumsily wipe the tears from under one dazed eye. Above you, he resembles a hungry, lustful angel, eyes darkened with unbridled need, affection, approval.  

“‘M’good to what’s mine, baby,” he whispers, pulling you into the crook of his neck as he chases both your highs. “Come, cariño—s’right, come for me.”

And you do, aching, ruined cunt squeezing and releasing, fluttering around Javi. He moans a downright sinful ‘fuck’ at the sensation, reaching his own peak almost in tandem with yours.

Only once his every last drop is spent, once his groan and your whines have stopped echoing around the unfamiliar, open space, does he pull back from your neck.

And when he looks at you… God. There’s something you’re both not saying.

“Only wanna see you cry like this, baby,” he tells you, laying a long, lingering kiss to your forehead. “Never gonna let them—let anyone—lay a finger on you again.”

Your breath hitches, the words thick and sticky in your throat. The both of you are dazed, breathless, and completely wrecked. “I’m… I’m glad we met. That you—that we’re doing this.”

He raises his eyebrows, crooning a soft ‘yeah?’ as he pushes your hair from your face.

You nod. “You make all of it worth it.”

He’s appreciative when leaning in for a kiss, slipping out of you and groaning against your lips. You tangle your fingers in his damp hair, leaning up into him with every aching muscle in your body, wanting nothing more than to become a part of his whole. When he pulls away, it's only to tuck his softening length back into his briefs. He focusses on you again, leaning over to affectionately stroke your knee.

“Is it just sex for you?”

His question comes as a bit of a surprise—you’d never heard him speak so openly, so innocent and vulnerable.

You cup his face. Despite the fact that he looks like the men from earlier, carries the same guns and ammo, knows what they know, even speaks their language, he’s never seemed so separate from them, an entirely different species.

“No—at first, maybe, but now… No. Not for me.”

He eases into a soft smile, wrapping you back into your blanket before laying back, manhandling you to rest against his still-unsteady chest.

Those masterful hands comfort you in a million different ways. He plays with your hair and traces the highest points of your cheekbone. He massages your knuckles, pulls you in for little kisses, dips into the curve of your waist.

“How about you?” The question is small, even though you anticipate the answer.

He takes a second before answering. When he does, his voice is low, quiet.

“Not at all, sweetheart.” He tilts your head up, his soft, caring gaze probing into every corner of your own. “Honestly, I think it’s been more than that since the first time you said ‘go fuck yourself, Peña.’” He whistles under his breath, exaggerating his approval. “Shit was hot.”

It makes you laugh, but it's also enough to make your heart soar. Settling in to the nook of his neck, you breathe in his familiar, earthly scent, until the exhaustion of the day eventually weighs on you.

You fall asleep with a smile on your face, entertained by the fact that while you really should be a wreck, you feel perfectly at ease, wrapped in the arms of your favourite DEA agent. In fact, you can hardly remember what your kidnappers looked like—or sounded like, for that matter—succumbing to slumber, you only think of him.

—

Less than three hectic, hazy days later, you’re pulling a suitcase through the Medellín international airport. There was no sense risking it anymore—you'd have to be transferred to the States until the assholes were caught. Ambassador's orders.

Javi flanks your side, eyes peeled for any abnormalities in your surroundings.

Your heart breaks with every step you take. He comes all the way to the gate without saying a word, merely holding onto one of your bags (that he'd insisted he carry) in a white-knuckled fist.

You’re running behind. There’s not much time.

He doesn’t say he’ll call—knows he’s not that kind of man. You don’t say you’ll visit. You don’t say you’ll write.

No, all you do is lean up on your tippy toes to plant a tender, lingering kiss to his cheek. He returns the favour by cupping your face, leaning down and kissing you intently.

Too intently—as if he were memorizing the grooves in your lips.

Well, that’s what you’re doing, anyways.

Over the loudspeaker, your name is called.

“They’re paging you,” Javi translates, his breath hitting your top lip.

You pull away, doing your best not to cry.

“Thank you.”

It’s all you say—it’s all that needs to be said, really.

Thank you for showing me I matter. Thank you for teaching me patience. Thank you for saving my life three times. Thank you for wanting me. Thank you for making me wait for it. Thank you for giving me a reason to miss this place.  

Thank you for loving me. I think that's what this is.

He hears it all, stuffed and contained, overflowing from the two uttered words.

Then he smiles, that well-trained, protective cockiness spreading across his face.

“You’re welcome, cariño.”

You scoff a laugh, slowly dropping his hand and turning towards your gate.

“If I ever visit home…” he calls after you.

You pause, smiling down at the glistening floor, shaking your head. “You’ll never catch me in Texas, Peña,” you call across the traffic of rushing families and over-packed suitcases. He smiles knowingly, hands in his pockets, watching you leave. “Just lock the fuckers up so I can visit. The weather sucks back home.”

You slowly walk backwards towards the exit, ignoring a few flight-attendant-glares, not daring to break off the playful eye contact linking you to your agent.

“I’ll do it just for you, baby,” he calls, grinning like a fool.

Strange. You’d never noticed how the teasing, that snarky back and forth you’d developed together seemed to put him at ease—to relax him. All that time he'd spent, driving you to the brink of insanity... it comforted him.

And that realization was enough to make you beam.

You commit that final glimpse to memory. Javi—smiling, calm, alive, yours. It was rare enough that you felt sure it would stick.

When you finally turn to face the gate, to face your future, you don’t feel like crying anymore.

It was enough just to have met him.

Maybe—just maybe—he felt the same.

—

All my friends tell me I should move on

I'm lying in the ocean, singing your song

Ahh

That's how you sang it

Loving you forever can't be wrong

Even though you're not here, won't move on

Ahh

That's how we played it

And there's no remedy for memory, your face is like a melody

It won't leave my head

Your soul is haunting me and telling me that everything is fine

But I wish I was dead (dead, like you)

Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise

No one compares to you

I'm scared that you won't be waiting on the other side

Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise

No one compares to you

I'm scared that you won't be waiting on the other side

All my friends ask me why I stay strong

Tell 'em when you find true love, it lives on

Ahh

That's why I stay here

And there's no remedy for memory, your face is like a melody

It won't leave my head

Your soul is haunting me and telling me that everything is fine

But I wish I was dead (dead, like you)

Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise

No one compares to you

I'm scared that you won't be waiting on the other side

Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise

No one compares to you

But there's no you, except in my dreams tonight

I don't want to wake up from this tonight

There's no relief, I see you in my sleep

And everybody's rushing me, but I can feel you touching me

There's no release, I feel you in my dreams

Telling me I'm fine

Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise

No one compares to you

I'm scared that you won't be waiting on the other side

Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise

No one compares to you

But there's no you, except in my dreams tonight

I don't want to wake up from this tonight

—

TAGLIST WILL BE CONTINUED IN REBLOG.

Strike-through means I cannot tag.

TAGLIST:

@millllenniawrites @theicypiscean @pining-and-tired @inkedells @stardust-chords-enthusiast @mattmurdocksgirlfriend @bookofbees @liviloo12346 @anyas-stuff @readingsunshine97 @maudlinflowers @caravelofthesun @sullysflm @sexygaypalpatine @livyjh @s-unflowxr @lostsoldieronahill @chapterhappygirl @raeluvshammett @buckysmainhxe @silkiers @jupitersmoon-cal @queer-poncho @supernaturaldean67 @razrsharpwhiteteeth @peqchsoup @expir3dl0v3 @corrodedcherries @hawsx3 @monboudoir @theonewithacrush @pono-pura-vida @dzaga890 @killerrxger @ayehomo @niallsbunny @cilliansangel @snowyarcher @Eggnox07 @grnherbs @mswarriorbabe80 @tercabed @sweettea-and-honeybutter @julesonrecord @bbyanarchist @stxrgvsm @thisgirl-knm @pedrit0-pascalit0 @redhotkitchen @princessdjarin @isitselfishifwetalkaboutmeagain @pseudonymist @goldengrapejuice @soullumii @ophealiadrowning @kamcrazy123 @milly-louise @djarinsgirl @cowboychickenlittle

[perotovar]

baby, i'm-a want you — a miniseries (18+)

summary: javier peña has been doing this a long time. he's really good at his job. joel miller? not so much. he started doing this to get some extra cash to support his daughters. what happens when they're supposed to do a scene together? aka, the au where javier and joel are gay porn stars~

pairing: javier peña/joel miller (plus some other ppcu boys on the side...) rating: E (18+) mdni content: unprotected p in a, oral, fingering, ass eating, use of plugs, gay terminology (bear, twink, etc), handjobs, blowjobs, swearing, smoking, (more to be added as it happens)

prologue: session zero chapter i: session one chapter ii: session two chapter iii: session three (aug 7) epilogue: fin

bonus: platinum tier

thank you in advance for reading!

for notifications, follow @oakslibrary ♥

[guess-my-next-obsession]

Guilty as Sin? - Chapter Four

pairing: professor!javier peña x f!reader

rating: series is 18+ only, minors DNI, fem masturbation, things get very flirty for a second, reader deals with the aftermath of chapter three, brief mentions of SA (from chapter three), the story's getting good babies!!!

word count: 4.1k

series masterlist

“Make yourself comfortable,” Javier said, leading you into his office—not the one attached to the lecture hall that you’d been used to visiting this week, but his real office. The walls were a shade of walnut with crown molding around the ceiling, bringing a very sophisticated and gentlemanly feel to the space. In front of his large wooden desk were two leather armchairs that matched the same tan leather of the large sofa pressed against the wall closest to the door. Along two walls stood ceiling-high bookcases that were so crammed with texts that they’d begun to stack up. 

“Fancy,” you noted, a smile tugging at your lips as you watched him unpack the contents of his leather messenger bag onto his desk; his laptop, then a portfolio, before finally pulling out his phone. A strange pang of jealousy laced with curiosity hit you. What secrets did that small rectangle hold? How many lovers did he have on speed dial? How many memories of his past were hidden away in his camera roll? You longed you know him half as well as that tiny device did. 

“Yeah, it’s not too bad,” he smiled, sitting down in the large swivel chair at his desk with a humph. 

“You, uh, you’re sure no one will snoop on us?” you asked, dragging your fingertip along the spines of the books as you studied them. 

“Not at this hour,” he said, clearing his throat. “Although maybe it’s best if we weren’t completely alone.”

“I trust myself not to do something stupid.” You shrugged, shooting him a playful, almost taunting look from over your shoulder. “Do you?”

Javier bit lip, shaking his head at you before letting it hang, a breath of amusement escaping him. “I suppose we’ll see.”

You decided to leave it at that, not quite ready to test those waters given the events of the night. But one day—maybe tomorrow, maybe ten years from now—you’d like to see just how stupid he could be over you. “Guess I’ll just leave you to it, then.” 

You could feel him watch you as you made your way to the couch, your skirt riding up as you sat down on the plush leather. You caught him staring as you tugged at the hem, but Javier quickly turned his eyes back to his screen the second you met his stare. 

“There’s a blanket and pillows in the closet over there,” he said, clearing his throat for the millionth time tonight. 

“Thanks,” you muttered, standing to walk over to the coat closet near the door. Unfortunately, the blanket and pillows were on the highest shelf, and even with your heels on you’d have to stretch to reach it. Given the fact that your ass was already threatening to make its debut, you decided to enlist the help of the man who put it that high in the first place. “Would you mind?”

“Oh,” he blurted, once again being caught staring. “Yeah. Sorry.” 

“You’re fine,” you breathed out, your heart beating out of your chest as he strides towards you, his eyes locked on yours. Once he was close enough to warm you with his body heat and that whiskey-warm cologne of his, you stopped breathing altogether. Keeping his eyes locked on you as you stood beside him, he watched you watching him, watched the way you all but panted at the sight of his arms flexing, watched the want in you skyrocket into dangerous territory. 

“Here,” he husked, his voice suddenly rough and heady as he held the basket out towards you. 

Your eyes carefully trailed up his strong hands to his forearms, his chest to his neck, his lips to his eyes. 

“Just gonna keep me waiting?” he teased, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. No, there was no amusement to be found in those rain-soaked soil brown eyes, only a challenge. 

But if he truly believed you’d be the first to act on whatever tension this was, he was sorely mistaken. 

Grabbing the basket, you offered him a cordial smile. Teasing. Taunting. “Thanks, Professor.”

Javier nearly groaned at the title but caught himself, although the reigned in sound of pain still registered for you, bringing a proud smirk to your face as you turned to walk back to the couch. 

Javier seemed to gather his wits, quickly turning back to his desk with a grind of his jaw. 

“So what did you do before this?” You gestured at his desk, at the papers he was grading. 

“Couple things,” he said, a sigh slipping from his lips as he sat down. 

“Secretive,” you teased, biting your lip as you made yourself comfy across the couch. “Did you practice before you became a professor?”

“No,” he said, reclining in his chair as his eyes lifted to meet yours. “You’re not gonna stop asking until I tell you, are you?”

“I think you already know the answer to that.”

He laughed, soft and honey sweet. “Out of high school I worked at the Sheriff’s Department in Laredo.”

“That’s where you’re from?” 

“Mmhm,” he nodded. “Got my bachelors in criminal justice while I was there, then I went for my PhD.”

“Then you came here?”

“No,” he replied, stroking his mustache in consideration. “I, uh, wanted to do more. Make a change and all that. So, at twenty-eight I decided to join the DEA. Did four years with them, then decided I’d seen enough death for a lifetime and came home. Helped my dad with the ranch for a year while I figured my shit out. Then I found myself here, telling nosy TA’s about my life.”

You smiled at his playful jab. “Was that plural? Should I be jealous?” 

He laughed again, sighing as dramatically as he could. “You’ve gotta stop.”

“Sorry,” you said, not feeling sorry at all. In fact, it felt empowering knowing that you could have such an effect on a distinguished, intelligent, decent man like Javier. 

The room fell silent for a few minutes, Javier’s typing and occasional sigh the only sounds to be heard. You stared up at the ceiling, tracing the lines of the wooden ceiling squares while trying to find any reason not to walk right over to his desk and present yourself as a midnight snack. 

Of course, there were reasons. Good reasons, if you were being honest with yourself. Beyond the fact that Javier was your professor and that a relationship between the two of you, if discovered, would certainly end in an expulsion from the Law program, you weren’t sure who he was beyond the intoxicating persona he’s chosen to show you. 

Was he just as bad as the rest of the men your age? Had he learned from his past and became a better man? A better partner? 

Judging by the fact that you were, as he claimed, the first student he’d ever been interested in, you could at least say that he was a man who understood boundaries. But was that all it took? Had the bar truly gotten so low that all you asked for was a man who knew when to back off? 

“Do you have a girlfriend?” you blurted, causing the typing sound filling the room to cease, a tense, pregnant silence taking its place. You turned your head to look at him, finding him already watching you with a quizzical look in his face. “Just…curious, I mean.”

“No,” he said your name, “I’m not good at that sort of thing.”

“Mm,” you hummed, turning back to the ceiling. “You a cheater or something? Workaholic, maybe?”

He chuckled. “Not a cheater, but maybe the second thing has a little to do with it.”

“So you don’t...sleep with—“

“Dangerous territory,” he warned, tutting his tongue. 

“How am I supposed to decide whether or not I want to fuck you if I don’t know anything about you?” you asked, giving him a playful smile. Javier didn’t look amused. In fact, he looked near the end of his patience. 

This made his next few words all the more shocking. “Guess you’ll have to figure that out on your own. Now, will you please sleep so I can focus on my work? You’re distracting enough without all your questions.”

“You’re really not going to do anything with me, are you?” you asked, turning so that your back was facing him. It was bad enough you felt the need to be so honest with him about your feelings, you didn’t need to look at him while you did it. 

“Go to sleep,” he muttered, soft and full of care. “I’ll wake you up before the sun rises.”

Javier stayed true to his word, both the wake up call and his not touching you. At five in the morning, you let him escort you out of the administration building, both of you careful to keep an eye out for any potential witnesses to the very mild crime of having spent an eventless night together in his office. 

“What’re you gonna do about the whole roommate situation?” he asked, covering up a yawn. Poor guy likely hadn’t slept all night, but thankfully it was the weekend. Plenty of time for him to rest and do whatever it was that he did with his free time. You just hoped those plans didn’t include some beautiful woman in his sheets. 

“Don’t know,” you shrugged, tugging the blanket he allowed you to keep tighter around your shoulders as he walked you to his car. “Might try and get a place to myself. It’s about time. Lived with them for four years now.”

“Mm,” he nodded, opening the passenger door for you. You slid into the seat carefully, not wanting to flash him. Javier leaned against the open door, his tired eyes looking oh so boyish. “And for today?”

“Just gonna try and make it through,” you managed, feeling a lump form in your throat at the thought of running into Derrick. Or Alondra. Or even Nina, really. He studied you for a minute, so long that you wondered if perhaps he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open. 

“You remember asking me if I trusted myself not to do something stupid?” You nodded. “How would you feel about spending the weekend in my guest room while you figure out a place to stay?”

Your lips parted, eyes bouncing between his own to find any sign that this was some cruel joke. But he was serious. That expectant look in his eyes the proof. 

“You don’t have to, of course,” he added, looking down at his shoes. “But I could help you find a place. I have a friend who runs a complex near campus, she could get you set up before Monday if I sweet talk her enough.”

Great. Female friend of his in need of sweet talking. Just what you wanted to hear. 

“I’ll be fine,” you insisted, jealousy turning you cold as you turned away from him. 

“I didn’t mean—“

“It’s fine,” you snapped, shedding the blanket around your shoulders and tossing it in the backseat. “You can keep your blanket too.” 

“Did I say something?”

“No,” you said. “Just…I’d like to go home.”

Javier took a beat to move, that time likely spent trying to figure out how your mood had shifted so quickly. He seemed to come up short as he gave in, shutting your door softly before making his way into the driver’s seat. 

He didn’t speak the entire drive and neither did you. Instead, the soft lull of classical music played on the radio, cushioning the tension a bit. When he pulled into your complex, he finally dared a glance. 

“What did I say?” he asked, a pleading tone to his voice. “Did I…make you uncomfortable? I didn’t mean to assume or overstep—“

“This female friend of yours sounds great,” you chided, giving him a forced smile as you opened the passenger door. “Maybe you should spend your time worrying about her.”

You didn’t give him time to respond as you made your exit, almost slamming the car door on your way out. You hurried into the building you’d called home for so long, suddenly feeling like a stranger there. 

The feeling only worsened as you reached your floor, the sound of music and laughter filtering out from beneath the front door of your apartment. You weren’t sure what hurt more, losing this place and these people or knowing that they hadn’t even noticed you were gone. 

But none of that mattered right now. You had to go inside, had to shower off the night, had to prepare yourself for a long weekend of apartment hunting and packing. You couldn’t cling to the good memories anymore, at least not the ones involving Derrick. And if Nina and Alondra decided they believed his story and not yours, well, then you’d have to find a way to forget them too. 

You unlocked the door with a deep breath, kicking off your heels by the shoe rack as you tiptoed into the apartment. Nina and Alondra were having what looked like a dance party in the living room, but stopped dead in their tracks when they noticed your presence. Quickly, though, they looked over your shoulder into the kitchen. Derrick. 

“Hey,” Nina started, her tone careful as she turned down the music. “We were worried about you.”

“Yeah, looks like it,” you said, forcing your tears to wait until you were alone to spill over. 

“Hey, can we, uh, talk?” Derrick asked, his footsteps coming closer to where you stood. You tensed at his presence, his cologne only reminding you of last night. He dared to try and put his hand on your shoulder, causing you to step away from him with a glare. “C’mon,” Alondra pleaded, “he’s trying to apologize.”

“Apologize?” you snapped, turning your eyes to meet theirs. “Do you have any idea what he actually did, or are you guys happy believing his side of things?”

“It wasn’t like I fucking tried to do anything,” Derrick snapped, pacing the room like he had any right. 

“Didn’t you?” You chuckled darkly. “Fuck you, Derrick.”

“He was drunk,” Alondra interjected. 

“Being drunk doesn’t negate the fact that if he had it his way, he’d have done a lot more than grope me last night,” you said, eyes now brimming with tears. “But you guys don’t give a shit. Not when he pays for all the spring break trips and covers your ass when you can’t make rent. Not when he has connections you guys want. No, you’d rather side with a fucking creep than me because the only thing I have to offer you is friendship. So both of you can kindly fuck off as well.”

They called your name but you refused to turn around as you made your way into your room, locking the door once you were inside. Crumbling to the floor, you allowed yourself fifteen minutes to cry before it was time to get your shit together. Fifteen minutes to mourn the last four years of your life. 

Finding the first shitty studio apartment in your budget that had a short-term lease in case shit ended up hitting the fan—again—was relatively easy. Moving out proved to be an entirely different obstacle. 

Having only one day to pack your shit up and leave was hard enough, but having Alondra and Nina constantly chiming in with how unnecessary they found the whole ordeal made it unbearable. 

“It’s literally not this deep,” Alondra said, carrying a box of your clothes down to the moving truck you’d rented for the day—even when you insisted she didn’t. “Like I don’t get it. Were you just looking for a reason to dip, because you could’ve just said that.”

You said nothing because she didn’t deserve the energy it would’ve taken to tell her to shut the fuck up. 

“We love you, hermanita.” Nina pouted as she waited by the moving truck. “We just don’t get it.”

“I know,” you muttered, breezing past her to load the last of your things into the truck. With the metal door shut and locked, there was nothing else keeping you around, no reason to endure this special kind of torture. “I guess I’ll see you guys around.”

Nina whined your name. Alondra rolled her eyes. You didn’t give a shit about either reaction, choosing instead to lift yourself into the cab of the moving truck without another word. 

Besides, what did you have to say to these women who chose to side with a manipulator like Derrick?

The first night in your own place was spent unpacking and trying to catch up on assignments. All those movies fooled you by glamorizing independence with their takeout boxes and solo dance parties in pajamas. The reality looked a bit more harsh. There were no takeout boxes, just an empty fridge and a half-eaten bag of chips to sustain you. There was no cathartic sing along in a matching set, just a concerning amount of sobbing in old tattered sweats. 

Still, you couldn’t help but feel a silver lining of hope in the dark cloud that was your loneliness. 

You’d never have to share a bathroom again or complain about the loud music your roommates insisted on waking you up to every morning. You were free to sob and to wear the ugliest—and comfiest—clothes you owned. You were free to fill your kitchen with food you liked without having to worry about taking up too much space. But most importantly, you were free to finally use that vibrator you’d bought for yourself sometime during Freshman year that you’d never had the courage to test out with three other people around. 

And what better way to distract yourself than by making yourself feel good? 

Slipping into the bed that you had disassembled, moved, and then reassembled all in the same day, you tugged the pink rabbit eared toy from beneath your pillow and turned it on, its soft purr filling the room. You bit your lip, shimmying out of your sweats before making yourself comfortable against the pillows. Taking a deep breath, you held it against your bud, testing the sensation and allowing yourself to acclimate to it as your mind conjured up a fantasy to whisk you off into. 

Of course, there was only one fantasy floating around upstairs these days. 

That beautiful man and his beautiful eyes peering up at you from between your thighs. This time you were seated on his desk, his strong hands holding your thighs open as he kissed his way along your inner thigh, teasing and sinful. A soft moan slipped from your lips as you imagined him placing a feather soft kiss to your clit, a playful smirk growing on his lips at the way your body shook with desperation. 

“Fuck,” you moaned, imagining his tongue flattening along your seam, his deep groan vibrating against you. 

Your thighs shook from the image, your end creeping on you faster than it ever had before. You imagined yourself burying your hands in his hair, holding him against your cunt as he took his time relishing in both your taste and your pleasure. And when fantasy Javier moved to slip his fingers inside of you, you saw stars. Throwing your arm over your mouth to drown out the sound of your choked moan, you came to the thought of your professor sucking your sweetness off his fingers, his dark eyes locked on yours. 

Monday signaled the start of a new week, one that meant deadlines and quizzes rather than the simple assignments that your professors dealt out during the first week back. You navigated through your day without the irritating presence of Derrick following you around, though the fear of running into him surely hadn’t left you alone as much as the man himself did. But it still shocked you how little life seemed to change, how unaffected you were by the loss of your “friends”. 

You’d expected there to be some longing for Nina and Alondra, some yearning to make amends just to have them back, but there wasn’t any. In fact, you’d been the most productive you’d ever been without their constant distractions. In between Dr. Brown and Dr. Arman’s lectures, you managed to complete a few of their assignments and finally start prepping for the Bar Exam—something you’d been putting off thanks to Nina convincing you you had plenty of time. 

All that was left in the day was facing Javier—no, Dr. Peña. That’s who he had to be from here on out. 

Finding a spot near the back of the room, you hoped to blend in with the crowd. Nina and Derrick were seated a few rows ahead of you, both of them taking calculated glances at you as the room slowly filled, though you pretended not to notice. 

Dr. Peña’s arrival caused everyone to quiet down as usual, though you couldn’t help but notice he lacked his usual confidence. 

Perhaps he was exhausted after spending the weekend inside of his female friend. 

“Afternoon,” he said, dejected and monotone. “Today you’ll all be working on—“

You watched as he scanned the front row with a look of concern before doing the same with each row. You shrank in your seat, hoping that the six-foot-something guy in front of you was tall enough to shield you from his view. When it appeared that you’d gone undetected, Dr. Peña clearing his throat before picking up where he left off, you allowed yourself to relax a bit. 

“I’m feeling a bit under the weather so I’m going to have you all complete the guided notes to today's presentation on Homicide,” he said, taking his seat at his desk. “Once you’re finished, please bring your papers up to the front and then you may leave.”

Fuck. 

You thought you were in the clear, but no. Now you had to walk up to him, look him in the eye, and pretend you hadn’t gotten off to him the night before. 

You were quick to finish the assignment, though it took you up until the end of class to finally muster the courage to take your paper down to him. With only ten or fifteen people left in their seats, you decided it was now or never. You grabbed your bag and slung it over your shoulder before braving the steps down to his level. He hadn’t looked up, not until you were standing in front his desk. 

He spoke your name with a hint of shock, his tired eyes softening a bit as he looked up at you. “I didn’t see you earlier.”

“Mmhm,” you hummed, swallowing down your nerves as you held your paper out for him to take. 

Except he didn’t. 

“Are you alright?” he asked, keeping his voice hushed. “Did you…get everything sorted?” 

“Yep,” you nodded, wagging the paper in front of him. “Will you take this so I can leave?”

“Would…would you mind coming to see me during my office hours?” he asked, finally taking the paper from you. “I’d just like to apologize.”

“You don’t have to.” You shrugged, giving him a forced, but polite, smile. “So if that’s all—“

“Office hours,” he repeated, this time with a bit more command than before. “Please.”

You considered him for a moment, but there was no chance of you turning him down. Not with those fucking forgive me puppy dog eyes. “I’ll think about it, Dr. Peña.”

He looked wounded by your formality, though what did he expect from you? He said nothing could happen between the two of you, and he was right. 

He opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by another student lining up behind you to turn in their paper. “I’ll see you at office hours.”

“Maybe,” you replied, forcing yourself into coldness as you breezed off and out of the hall. 

There was one thing keeping you standing at this point, a pink, rabbit eared thing that carried the weight of your entire sanity. It beckoned you home—to your home. One you got all by yourself, one that offered you a safe place to break down if you needed it. And with the weekend you just had, boy did you need it. 

[ariisheresstuff]

Gon request a Javier Peña x reader where they’re like married and Javi had a late day and got home late n stuff and reader is all tucked into bed and he just gets real domestic n shit and he tried really hard not to wake her up but she’s already awake and she asks about his day and as he’s telling her he sees that she’s fallen back to sleep

Thx :)

Dozing Off

Pairings: Javier Peña x Fem!Reader

Genre: Fluff

MasterList

A/N: Ty for the request! Enjoy! <3

It was around two in the morning when Javi got home from work. Today was draining for him. Him and Steve had a new case coming up and the paperwork and investigations were just exhausting. Javi yawned as he entered the apartment you and him shared. You and him have been married for almost two years but dating for about three years. He took out the key to the front door and quietly opened the door and entered in. He threw his stuff on the floor before going into the kitchen to get a drink. He paused when he say a note on the counter. He took the note that read:

I made your favorite for dinner, it’s in the fridge. Heat it up. I love you mi amor. ~Y\N

Javi smiled at the note but frowned a bit, he felt like a bad husband for always leaving you at home to cook and clean while he’s out busting his ass. You two haven’t really had a proper moment with each other. Javi quickly took a shot of liquor before deciding that he should eat the food you made for him. His heart felt light at the fact that you made food for him even though he’s never properly home with you.

Once Javi finished eating, he entered the bedroom. He stepped in quietly as he admired your sleeping form on his side of the bed. He chuckled through his nose before walking up to you. He kneeled down as he rubbed your back softly before kissing your forehead gently. “I’m home cariño,” he said softly, he stood back up and quickly changed into his sleep wear. As Javi turns to face the drawers, his arm hit a candle that was sitting on the nightstand. The impact caused the candle to fall making a big thud. Javi gritted his teeth as he catched the candle. “Javi?” He heard your groggy voice call his name as he turned to see you lift your head with your eyes squinting at him. “Shit, I’m sorry baby. I didn’t mean to wake you, go back to sleep.” Javi went over to you as he repeatedly kissed your head as he rubbed your back to get you to sleep. “It’s okay, I was trying to stay awake for you but clearly that didn’t work.” You chuckled making Javi sigh “Baby, I told you to not wait up for me. You need sleep.” Javi cupped your face as he rubbed a thumb over the apple of your cheek. You took his hand and kissed his palm. “You need sleep too.” Javi sighed knowing that you were right, he let go of your cheek as he went to put on his sleepwear. You watched him as you did, “How was your day?” You asked him through a yawn making him chuckle, “Same old shit. Steve being a pain in the ass like always.” You rolled your eyes before laughing at him, Javi got into bed with you as he pulled you into his chest. “Anything exciting happening?” You asked him once more as you drew shapes on his bare chest, Javi sighed as he also drew shapes on your arm. “Starting a new case. Not that much detail yet, but I’m pretty sure it will be more of a shit show than Escobar. Motherfucker was not giving us a break. I’m pretty sure that this case will— Javi stopped his sentence as he heard you start to snore. He looked down at you in his arms to see you passed out. Javi couldn’t help but laugh, and he shook his head. “Guess I bored you with my job cariño,” He joked before kissing your head a few times, “Sleep tight, mi amor.”

Tag-List: @otomefan @slasherstories123 @amis-love-bugs @avengersfan25

[hotgirlbedtimescenarios]

Series Masterlist:

The Story of Us

(completed series)

Main blog Masterlist

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!reader

Series Summary: Everything seems fine until it’s not. Javier Peña leaves you reeling and heartbroken when he breaks things off and disappears from your life. In the following years, you piece yourself back together, but when he returns like a ghost from the past, bringing old feelings and memories with him, will you choose to continue on the path of divergence or be pulled back into his orbit. There is a choice to be made, past or present, and either way, someone is bound to get hurt.

Vibe: angst, heartache, tumultuous, yearning, pining, tension

(Warnings listed on each individual chapter)

CHAPTERS

Last Kiss (pt. 1)

Haunted (pt. 2)

Back to December (pt.3)

Timeless (pt.4)

[userlando]

✧･ﾟ 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲, 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐥

steve murphy x female!reader summary ⤍ work is piling on, bogotá is suffering from a heatwave and all you want is steve murphy. warnings ⤍ 18+ (mdni), co-workers to lovers, explicit language & smut, public sex, unprotected sex (piv) a/n ⤍ surprise surprise, of course i'd circle back to steve murphy some day. hope i made it justice. prob won't be the last i write of him since this was a lot of fun, so hope you enjoy this one lovies <3

It was brain meltingly hot in the office today, perspiration on your forehead and bra uncomfortably pinching your torso, to the point where it was almost antagonising you. It had been hot the moment you got out of bed this morning, and it hadn’t gotten any better throughout the day even though you’d opted to stay back in the office and work on the mountain of stacked papers that only seemed to grow by the hour on your desk.

You’d think that the heatwave would settle when people had begun to filter out, emptying the office space little by little. But the sun was still shining tauntingly through the windows and the floor fans were doing their best to keep up.

You glared at said fans, watching them spin round and round with the occasional squeal. A sigh escaped your lips as you leaned back against your chair, ignoring the discomfort of your shirt sticking to your back and reaching out for the nearest folder you could use to fan yourself with. The people in the office could really use an extra two swipes of deodorant and cut back on the cigarettes. The odours were starting to settle in your nose in the most unpleasant way and you didn’t know how much longer you could stand it.

It was clear that you weren’t going to get much work done anymore, but you’d be damned if you stepped foot outside the building with the sun still beating down on the city of Bogotá and you had a feeling that your apartment wasn’t much better than… this. It had too many large windows with afternoon sun.

Your freezer contained ice lollies though, something you’d craved all day. And your apartment offered you the liberty of wearing a long tank top with no pants and no bra. But it didn’t have Steve Murphy.

Steve Murphy, who was sitting across from you with his back leaned against his chair in a similar position to yours. He was reading from a folder, eyebrows tightly knit the way they always got when he was concentrating and you took a moment to silently admire the arch of his nose and the inviting pink of his lips. His hair had been styled halfheartedly in the morning, but it was now sticking up from running his fingers through it and the strand were clumped up together from the sweat and moisture in the air. Nobody made sweating look as good as Steve did. It should’ve pissed you off but it was a sight for sore eyes.

Your thoughts stuttered to a halt when he stuck a chewed up pen in his mouth and bit into it, looking a little annoyed all of a sudden and you knew he’d finally given up on making sense of the endless amount of scripts and documents you’d spent the last three days pouring through. Carrillo was truly a closeted sadist for assigning you so much work to go through in such little time.

There was a small clearing of a throat from the side and you glanced to the left, feeling like a kid who’d gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Javier wasn’t looking at you, but there was a small smile playing on his lips that let you know that he’d definitely caught you ogling the blond man sitting in front of you. You reached your leg out and kicked him in the shin, earning a startled yelp from him and a questioning glance from Steve.

“Sorry,” you said with no remorse in your voice. “Muscle spasm.”

Javier narrowed his eyes at you like he could see right through your bullshit, flicking a stack of papers on his desk before picking some new ones up to read through. You could’ve bet a few bucks that he wasn’t reading through them as intently as he had been two hours ago. His mind had already checked out for the day, as had yours. You couldn’t blame him.

The three of you worked in moderate silence and the occasional annoyed grunt and comment thrown into the air, for the next hour. The sun was finally starting to set, casting shadows in the moderately empty office but you were getting more agitated by the second.

The heat was getting to you and fucking Steve couldn’t stop chewing his lip and touching his neck.

It all took you back to that one godforsaken night a few weeks ago. You’d gone out with the two of them for a drink, and Javier had wandered off at some point; Mumbling something about getting laid. And he’d subsequently left the two of you alone at the bar with more drinks in your systems than necessary and sexual tension so thick you could cut it with a knife.

You’d sworn to never involve work and pleasure when you transferred to Colombia to work on catching the drug lord, and yet you’d found yourself pressed up against a wall in the far back of the bar and your tongue shoved down your partners throat. The taste of whiskey on his tongue had been intoxicating, everything about him had been irresistible. But it had been a one time thing, that’s where you set your boundary and Steve had respected it in his own way. He hadn’t tried anything with you, but there had been the occasional eye contact and suggestive comment. You’d be a filthy liar if you said you didn’t enjoy it just a tiny bit.

You must’ve started fidgeting in your chair because you caught Steve glancing up, not picking his head up from where it was slumped. The sight of him looking at you through his lashes made something in your stomach squirm.

“What?” You mouthed, biting the inside of your lip when his lips transformed into a smirk. It was like he could read your thoughts in your eyes. “Fucker.”

His smile got wider somehow, and he quickly managed to tamper it down when Javier suddenly sighed loudly. You both turned your gazed toward him, just in time to watch how he stood up from his chair and picked up a few folders.

“Need to make copies.” He explained, as if one of you had asked him. Javier didn’t need your permission though, nonchalantly grabbing his blazer and walking out of the room and you had a feeling that was the last you’d see of him for tonight.

You glanced back at Steve to catch him already staring at you, and you tried to not feel so self-conscious about the way your hair was probably a damp mess and your face sweaty. It looked good on Steve, but you couldn’t pull it off like he did.

“You done with that?” He asked, like you hadn’t been having a staring contest and you gave him a questioning arch of the eyebrows until he clarified by nodding at a folder by your arm.

“Have at it.” You sighed, handing it over to him before standing up from your chair.

It scraped against the floor and you glanced around to see if you’d disturbed anyone with the obnoxious sound. Aside from a few officers on the other side of the room, it was completely empty. And that made something redhot run through your blood.

You walked over to the water tank to fill your mug up with water cold enough to give you a brain freeze, thinking about maybe taking off and going home. Javier had once again left you alone with Murphy, and the heat was melting the last of your common sense.

There had been one close call where Carrillo had paired you and Steve together for a stakeout; monitoring a warehouse on the outskirts for any signs of drug transportations, but you’d smoothly gotten out of it and had Peña jump in instead. There was no telling what would happen if they put you and Steve in a car during the night with nothing but the two of you to keep each other company.

It wasn’t like the two of you hadn’t been friends before the bar incident, it was quite the opposite. Being a woman in this field was tough, but Steve had - along with Javi - welcomed you like his own surprisingly quickly.

There were only so many times you could carpool and watch a shitty movie cuddled up on the couch before you started treading over dangerous water. A phone call home didn’t bring you the same comfort as greasy food on the couch after a long day of chasing ghosts and criminals. It was easy to feel homesick when alone, so it was a good thing that you had your partners a few doors down if you ever needed them.

“It’s way too fucking hot to work.” Steve complained and you gave a laugh with a nod. He flicked the papers onto the desk and leaned all the way back on his chair and you took that as a sign that he - much like you - was done with work.

You rounded the corner of the desk and tried not stare too hard at his arms when he reached up to rest his hands on the back of his head. His biceps were bulging a little too invitingly, and you had to shake yourself as you perched on the edge of his desk. There was no mistaking his wandering gaze as he slowly looked up your legs, to your upper body until he reached your eyes and you raised your eyebrows to show him that you’d caught him looking.

He didn’t seem too embarrassed though, judging by the slow smile forming on his face.

“Might be time to call it for tonight.” You said, glancing around the half-empty office. “Not like we’re gonna make any more progress than we’ve done today.”

Steve made a sound in his throat like he agreed with your sentiment, happily accepting the mug of water when you handed it to him. You watched him take a sip, throat bobbing as he swallowed and you suddenly felt a little too hot under your clothes.

“D’you wanna head over to mine? Grab a beer and just kick back.” He asked, glancing up at you and you nodded slowly.

“Sure.” You watched him stand up, shuffling papers and folders around in a poor attempt to organise his desk before giving up and reaching for a packet of cigarettes. He stuck one between his teeth and lit it up. “Do you think Javi will be back?”

Steve looked at you with an are you serious? look, and you tried not to think about how hot he looked with a cigarette hanging from between his lips. Cocky looked so good on him.

“You’re lucky if you see him any more today.” He replied, grabbing his jacket and pushing in his chair.

You made a sound of agreement and walked around the desk, picking your bag up and showing a few folders inside it before the both of you were set to go home.

It couldn’t have been in your head, the tension in the air as the both of you walked out of the office. It felt like you were barely hanging onto a thread and it seemed to grow even thinner when the blond man touched your waist as he let you pass by him first through a doorway.

The two of you locked eyes for a split second and that confirmed everything that you needed to know. And that’s what you used as an excuse as your eyes flickered back and forth until you found a door that you knew lead to a documentation room, not hesitating for a split second as you reached your hand back and blindly grabbed Steve’s hand in yours.

He let you lead him way too easily, your hand shaking a little as you turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. And that’s when Steve took over, putting more of his body weight on your back to help you get into the room faster. You didn’t think of how unethical it was, or how it was such a bad idea to hook up once again with your partner at your workplace, of all places.

You didn’t even think of how absolutely stifling it was in the small room, too focused on the way Steve was staring you down like a predator eyeing it’s prey. He closed the door and turned the lock without taking his eyes off of you, and it was dark but not dark enough for you to miss the smirk playing on his lips as he walked you backwards.

You reached your hands out to grab at his disheveled tie, yanking hard enough for a breath to escape his lips before you settled your mouth over his in a heated kiss. There was a loud bang as he placed a hand flat against the metal drawers by your head to keep himself from stumbling into you, a moan creeping its way up his throat and you revelled in the taste of his tongue.

It was warm inside, suffocating really, but you needed more. You needed him closer and on you. He didn’t have any problems with complying when you snuck an arm around his torso and had the other one grab at his hair, turning your head slightly so he could lick deeper into your mouth.

You could taste the coffee he’d been sipping on a few hours ago and smell his aftershave that transported you back to that night at the bar where you’d been in a position just like this. He slid his mouth down your cheek, jaw and pressed sucking kisses and licks against the side of your throat. It was hard to stay still when the sharpness of his moustache hairs pricked and scratched your sensitive flesh.

“Fuck, always smell so good, baby.” He was panting, and so were you.

There was no doubt that he could feel your heart beating in your throat, right under his lips where he was definitely sucking a mark that wasn’t gonna fade within the next week. It should’ve made you furious, because that meant scarves and long collars in this unbearable weather but it only made you keen and pull him in closer. The thought of him marking you up for your co-workers to see, for Javier to give off that infuriatingly smug grin and for Steve to proudly parade around; Knowing he did that.

You were a proud woman, having worked your ass off to get where you were today and you’d be damned if you were to be seen as someone other than their own person. But something about fooling around with Steve; Breaking the obvious unspoken rule that wasn’t really a rule. Not really. Rules were hardly a thing to follow within these walls if they weren’t reinforced by the colonel himself.

“Steve, you better fuck me now or I’ll scream.” You tried to sound threatening, but your voice sounded too breathy and it only made Steve laugh like he knew he had you right where he wanted you.

“So needy,” he whispered, pulling his head up to look at you and you reached forward to steal a kiss from his lips that he was all too happy to give. Hearing and feeling him sigh happily against you made your stomach feel like it was bottoming out, all the feelings you’d been trying to hold in, spilling out.

He brought his hands to the front of your torso, squeezing at the swell of your tits over your shirt and sliding his hands down your quivering stomach until he got to the button of your jeans, letting out a noise of frustration. You watched him unbutton your jeans with a smile, taking your chance to grab at his messy hair and tilt his head to the side so you could kiss the delicate skin of his neck.

You didn’t see it, but you could feel his hands falter where they were struggling to unbutton your jeans, his head throwing back for a few seconds like he was trying to catch his breath and collect his thoughts. You could’ve taken mercy on him and help him get you out of your pants, but it was a little too enjoyable for you to kiss and nibble at his throat and earlobe. You’d only hooked up twice now, but it didn’t take a genius to find his sweet spot seeing as it was right beneath his ear.

“Couldn’t have worn a damn skirt.” You heard him mutter as he crouched and you grinned.

“Not very —“

“Practical. Yeah, I know. So you’ve said.” You couldn’t see his eyes, but you could hear the eye roll in his voice and it made you smile even harder. Steve could be an asshole, but you’d be damned liar if you said that he wasn’t a good listener.

He finally pulled back and yanked your jeans down your legs, crouching down to help you out of them, one leg at a time. You ran your fingers through his hair and almost recoiled when he glanced up at you from his crouched position; Caught off-guard by the softness in them. The blue of his eyes made something fierce squeeze in your chest and you let out a small whimper when he leaned forward to press a gentle kiss between your legs, over your panties.

You watched him kiss his way up, and it felt like coming home when he finally reached your lips and pried then open with his own. There was no doubt that the man could kiss, and you loved every second of it.

It made you jump a little when he pulled your panties to the side, the pads of his fingers swiping through the mess that he’d created. He let out a shuddered breath against your lips and rocked back just far enough to look at you without the both of you going crosseyed.

“I don’t have a condom on me.” He murmured, and if you’d looked hard enough then you would’ve seen remorse in the blue of his eyes.

You tried to collect your thoughts but it was difficult when his fingers were circling your clit. Your hands grabbed at his shirt, and you wouldn’t be surprised if you ripped a hole in it.

“I’m on the pill,” you said, feeling your cheeks heat up a little as his eyebrows climbed on his forehead. “And I’m clean. I trust you.”

He searched your eyes for a moment, and it would’ve almost been tender if it wasn’t for the fact that he got two fingers up your cunt and was fucking into you like he was testing out how wet you were.

It felt like an eternity when he finally nodded, offering you a small smile and a quick kiss.

“I’m clean too.” He pushed his fingers deep, making you gasp and buck into him. “And there hasn’t been anyone else after you. Or even before you.”

The implication was there, and you revelled in his confession because those had been thoughts that had been plaguing you for a hot moment. Javi had his line of women to call and you didn’t know if that was the case for Steve. You spent a lot of time together outside of work, but there were still gaps in time where he could’ve hooked up with whomever he pleased. This job was hard and it put a whole lot of pressure on your shoulders, so much so that the average person would cave from it. It was only normal to seek basic human intimacy and lose yourself in it, even if it was only for a night or an hour.

It made your belly turn a little sour whenever you thought of it, you just didn’t want to admit it out loud because that would somehow make it seem real. Make your feelings for him real. You weren’t sure what that meant.

Crossing the line with your partner a second time went against everything you’d believed in. You never wanted to get involved with anyone like this because your work was dangerous enough, add a person you cared for into the mix and it made it even more terrifying.

“Hey, you with me?” Steve’s gentle voice brought you back from your inner turmoil and you blinked at him, giving him a nod.

“Yeah, I’m here.” You replied, giving him a small smile when his lips turned up in reassurance. “Come on, I’m ready. Fuck me please, Steve.”

Steve groaned like he’d never heard anything sweeter, pulling his fingers out and bringing them up between you. He didn’t even hesitate to slip his digits inside his mouth to clean them off and you felt your entire body heat up at the crude sight. It reminded you of all the nights where you’d go out to grab a bite after work and he’d be licking his fingers clean from frying oil and grease. You’d found it a turn on then, and it certainly was a turn on now.

“You’re an asshole.” You giggled at the filthy smile playing on his lips, getting your hands on his trousers and unbuttoning them.

You glanced between the two of you and stuck your hand inside his underwear to fish him out, heartbeat picking up at the weight and warmth of him in your hands. You could hear him breathing against the side of your head, pressing his lips against your temple and making a piss poor attempt of stifling his moan when you got a good grip on him and slid your hand to the base.

“Feel so good in my hand, Steve.” You hummed, closing your eyes and marvelling in the press of his body when his hand started giving out to the weight. He was moaning quietly into your ear, voice rough and raspy as you jacked him off. “Can’t wait to feel it inside of me.”

He hummed out a drawn out groan, bending a little at the knees to get a good grip on your right thigh and hauling it up over his hip. The new angle allowed him to nudge against you and you gasped, leaning into it.

You were too busy looking between the two of you, and you didn’t register his other hand sliding up to cup your cheek until you were staring right into his eyes in the darkness. He was observing you, you realised. The moment felt a little too intimate to have in a decrepit room after office hours, but you didn’t dare to look away from his gaze.

His thumb ran over the bottom of your lip. “You okay?”

You couldn’t help but smile, nodding your head to show him that yeah, of course you’re okay.

“I’m more than okay. Now, come on before the janitor makes his rounds.” You urged him, earning a startled laugh from the man.

“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded, gripping himself and leaning a little more of his weight against you so he could notch right against your hole.

Your eyes fluttered closed when he pressed in, feeling him filling you up quicker than you expected but there was something about the burn that made you want more. So you didn’t protest, only gripping his shoulders tighter until he bottomed out.

Steve was watching your face the entire time, eyes struggling to stay open because fuck, the heat and the tightness of you gripping him made him feel like he’d died and entered the pearly gates of whatever heaven existed. The small hitches in your breathing was like music to him, and he longed for the day he could get you in his bed and fuck you properly until he had you moaning without the fear of being caught.

You were a loud one, that’s what he’d garnered from the one occasion you’d hooked up. But you were still holding back and he could tell by the way you gnawed at your lips and bit incomplete circles into his shoulders that did fuck all to silence your pretty sounds.

“That’s it, sweetheart.” He murmured in encouragement when he started thrusting, hips meeting yours in the awkward angle but he knew he was hitting something good and deep inside of you. It was written all over your face. “Clenchin’ up so nicely around me. What a pretty sight you are.”

“Steve.” You moaned, treading your fingers in the strands of his damp hair and bringing his mouth to yours in a sloppy kiss.

It was all teeth and tongue, noses bumping and teeth knocking but it made you weak in the knees all the same. You indulged yourself for a few moments, letting yourself get lost in his taste and touch before breaking the kiss, leaning your forehead against his and watching him through blurry eyes as he squeezed his eyes shut.

Seeing Steve lost in the feeling, hips working against yours and arms grabbing at you to keep you steady and hold you close was a marvel to see. You weren’t sure if you’d ever get tired of the little pinched expression on his face when something felt particularly good for him; How his mouth would drop open into a little O and his eyebrows would draw together. Kind of like how they did when he’d sit across from you at your desks while he struggled to read Spanish.

Your stomach was knotting up, the telltale sign of your end nearing and you let go of his shoulder with one hand to shove it between your bodies and hook your hand into your panties.

The touch of your fingers against your clit made you clench, which made Steve’s thrust stutter and his breath get punched out of him.

“Keep going,” he encouraged you, nodding his head and jostling your head in the process form where it was leaned against his. “Touch yourself for me, wanna feel you come.”

It was cliché, and ridiculous how fast you neared the edge of oblivion at the whispered words he was speaking against your mouth. They sounded so demanding, breathless and absolutely filthy.

There was a second of desperation where the two of you clung to each other, his hips bruising yours and his hands no doubt leaving marks as he pulled you tight to his body. Your hand cramped up and you had just enough time to lean toward his shoulder and bite down before you were sent over the edge with a muffled shout.

You heard a distinct guttural moan, and you couldn’t tell if it was coming from you or Steve thanks to the sound of the blood rushing in your ears. But you could absolutely feel how he buried himself inside of you and let himself go, your already sensitive body shaking where it was slumped against his.

There was no telling who was holding up who, but you suspected that he was doing the brunt of the work because you couldn’t feel your fucking legs and your mouth was still open against his shoulder. You picked your head up when your senses slowly started seeking back into your body, making a sound in your throat when you realised that you’d been drooling.

Steve tilted his head to the side at the noise, gaze following yours and he let out an exhausted laugh.

“Is it weird if I find that hot?” He asked, voice hoarse and low and you laughed.

“Shut up,” you winced as he slowly let your leg back down on the grimy floor, slipping out of you in the process. “Oh, gross.”

Steve snorted, cupping a hand against your cheek and pressing a kiss against the side of your head. You bit back a smile at the tender gesture, busying yourself with adjusting your underwear so you didn’t have to look at him.

He didn’t say anything as the both of you got cleaned up as best you could, redressing yourselves and you didn’t want to chance a glance at him just yet. You didn’t know what you’d find written on his face; whatever emotion or expression it would hold. You weren’t quite ready to face it just yet.

You watched his back as he walked up to the door, eyebrows raising in amusement when he cracked the door open and peeked outside into the hallway. He must’ve deemed it clear, because he slid it open and stepped to the side, reaching a hand out to gesture you to get a move on.

You didn’t waste any time to slip back outside again, the hallway feeling much cooler than the stifling confines of the documentation room. There was nothing you craved more than a shower at that moment, feeling sticky all over. And the fact that you were absolutely ruining what was left to salvage of your underwear.

“Are we still on for that beer?” Steve asked, distracting you from your wandering thoughts and you glanced at him from the corner of your eye.

His hair was looking worse for wear, cheeks flushed and lips bitten raw and pink. There was no way that anyone could take a look at you and not think that you’d been screwing each others brains out. You almost feared looking in a mirror, afraid of what you’d find in terms of marks and scratches.

“I hope you have some at your place because all I have is milk.” You replied, earning a small shoulder bump from the man next to you.

“I’ve got you.” He opened the door leading the way out to the street. “Besides, I’ve got better fans in my apartment.”

You couldn’t argue with that. Yours was only days away from falling apart into pieces. You just hoped that yours wouldn’t break down tonight when this heatwave was still active and raging. You’d actually cry.

Steve unlocked his door and opened the passenger door for you, regarding you with a look in his eyes that made you stop in your tracks.

“What?”

“Would you wanna stay over tonight?” He asked, forehead wrinkling and your eyebrows raised.

He looked almost nervous. Uncertain. Like he didn’t know whether you were going to blow him off or take him up on his offer. It made you pause as you searched his face, and you didn’t know why you suddenly felt an overwhelming rush of adoration but it made your knees shake a little.

“You mean sleep in your bed?” You asked, voice lilting into a teasing tone and it made Steve smirk.

You watched him tilt his head back and forth, as if he was unsure but the smile on his lips was playful and it made you feel a little giddy.

“Amongst other things.” He replied and you laughed.

“Scandalous.”

Steve narrowed his eyes, tongue in cheek as he struggled to refrain from smiling too big. You turned and started to climb into his truck, the sound of a loud smack making you let out a loud yelp. You didn’t even register the slight pain in your asscheeks until you’d turned fully and sat down on the seat; Realising that he’d just slapped you.

“You’re a sleaze, y’know that?” You glared at him, but Steve only grinned like he was proud of himself.

He pushed the door open even wider and crowded your space, sliding his hands up your cheeks to cup them and bring your face to his. You blinked up at him, a little breathless at the sight of his blue eyes so close up to yours.

“You still like me, don’t you?” He murmured, corner of his lips tugging and you couldn’t help but press a kiss against it; Watching it transform into a smile.

“Just a little.” You lied, earning a longer kiss from him.

“I’ll take that.”

[almostfoxglove]

I'LL CARRY IT

written for my angst challenge

Rating: Explicit (18+)

Pairing: Javier x f!Reader

Word Count: 5.9k

you can read on ao3 too, if you like!

SUMMARY: Your childhood best friend returns to Laredo a celebrated hero. When he shows up at your bar shackled by grief, you drag him home for the night. CW: Heavy alcohol consumption and brief reference to the death of a parent. A fair bit of yearning.

Takes place somewhere in S3E1 after the wedding but before Javier returns to Colombia.

part II | series masterlist | masterlist

12:00 A.M.

At first you mistake it for a good thing. Last shift before your weekend, two hours to go, and the long-gone local hero back in his hometown smoking a cigarette at your bar. Your break over, you slink from the backroom into the riotous din of The Last Man Standing—one of Laredo’s many dives—to reclaim your post behind the bar. Place is a hellhole as often as it is crowded and tonight’s no different, and yet you’re halfway to a smirk. Pleased to see an old friend.

He hasn’t looked up, hasn’t seen you yet, so you busy yourself with the guy who flags you down to order the second he spots you. Fine by you, the guy tips well the later it gets and it’s already after midnight, and regardless, you don’t mind having an excuse to observe The Javier Peña, DEA agent extraordinaire, at a distance. Top button undone, cigarette vanishing in his hand, eyes glued to the ring-stained bartop as smoke shivers out between his lips. Quite the celebrity now. Been home three weeks if the rumors are true but you’ve yet to see him. You figured he’d call, but he didn’t—not that you’re surprised. 

Eight years feels like nothing now. Maybe he’s a hero to everyone else, but to you Javier looks exactly the same as he has his whole life—all that’s changed is the depth of his misery. How he doesn’t look up for anything or anyone, except to shrug off the occasional shoulder clap from some drunk stranger. 

When you’ve served the guy his drink and collected your tip—30%, thank you sir—you shake the nerves loose from your shoulders and slide up, glass in hand. 

“Well shit,” you say when you’re in front of him, and Javier slowly lifts his eyes. You smile, all rogue. No shake to your voice at all as you pour a whiskey blind. “This the part when I ask for an autograph?”

Javier’s dark brow dips in the middle and you might as well be twenty-eight again. Twenty-one. Eighteen. Eleven. All the ages you’ve been with him in all the years you’ve known him. Because this, right here—that little furrow that looks like a frown if you’re not looking close enough—is exactly how he’s always been. How he’s always looked at you after time spent away. 

Sure, there’s never been this much away . This much radio silence. The kind of parting that comes with getting older, getting further—something you once would’ve sworn only happens to everyone else. You’ve made your peace with it. Wished him well from the wrong side of the hemisphere. You’ve had lives of your own. 

Seems he can still cut a tiny hole in your chest when he withholds a smile. 

Javier spears smoke from the corner of his mouth as you slip his empty glass behind the bar and replace it with the fresh pour, watching as he nods in a tired, humorless way. “Not signing shit for you,” he gruffs, and snubs his filter into the crystal ashtray beside his glass. 

One-two-three-four-five others sit beside it, ashed in their grave. 

So he feels about as bad as he looks.

“Awful snappy for a man hoggin’ a barstool,” you reply.

The corner of his mouth flinches but doesn’t pull. He picks up his glass, eyes sagging away from you. “Nice to see you too,” Javier concedes.

1:00 A.M.

Friday means it’s crazy, means the rest of your shift slingshots by, and most of the night someone else is working Javier’s side of the bar so you lose track of his drinks. The windows of the bar have fogged, giving the world beyond a kind of eerie glow. 

You do your best to watch him, holding in your stomach a knot of newborn worry, but there’s always someone shouting for another drink. Now and then you catch some guy in a cap lumbering up to him to boast loudly of his pride, and though it’s microscopic—invisible maybe to everyone else—you see the way Javier shrinks in on himself. Folds.

The smoking, too, goes on. You sweep past him on your way to a booth in the corner, tray of shots balanced in hand, and accidentally inhale a sour cloud as he blows it out. You try to stifle your cough as you reach the table, doling out the silver glasses slick with tequila. On your way back to the bar, Javier catches your eye and snuffs the spent cigarette with an apologetic look. Pendant lights sway in his eyes like fireflies. You shake your head like he’s being silly, squeeze his shoulder briefly as you pass, and the roar of his body beneath your palm blazes like a campfire. The kind of heat that blackens everything to char. 

You think he’s had four drinks, maybe five, but not for sure.

2:00 A.M.

Only the drunks remain to kick out into the bog of late-summer, all that humidity that ruins your hair. You like most of ‘em. Most swagger out with a slurred night, sweetheart as you usher them safely into their cabs. Then all that’s left is your childhood sweetheart slumped over at the bar. Dated for two weeks in sixth grade—broke up over god knows what, probably him stealing your favorite gel pens—and were inseparable ever after. The second that kid sloped into your classroom, all gangly limbs attached loose as rubber bands and dark curls drifting vagrantly into his eyes, you just knew. Didn’t know how, didn’t know why—but you knew that boy would be home, and he was for years. 

Look at him now. Passed out drunk, lips parted, cheek squished flat beside his empty glass. His cigarette flares from his limp hand beside his face. You shoo off your coworker with a friendly gnight before slipping the cigarette from Javier’s fingers to crush in the crystal tray with its brothers. 

You go about cleaning up around him. He doesn’t wake for anything—not even when you have to count all the coins in the till for the night—which also, is new. Javier’s always slept like shit, even when you were kids and there wasn’t much to sweat over. Woke up if someone in the other room dared to breathe too deeply. 

Guess a bathtub’s worth of whiskey will take anybody out. 

When it’s time to go, you slip your hand up his spine to rest between his shoulder blades. “Alright, cariño,” you say softly. “Time to go home.”

Javier stirs, but only barely. A grunt, a shallow breath, a flutter in his lashes. You pat his back firmly, not harshly, but enough that he sniffs and grunts again, awake. 

“Blue’s still up there,” he mumbles with his eyes closed. 

Grinning, you lift your face to the ceiling fan overhead—one of two dozen in this place, none of which run and all of which droop with a rainbow of bras tossed into the rafters. Above you now sways the strap of a pale blue bra mildewed with dust. Would’ve been your twenty-first when you shot that up there, and it’s never fallen. 

“I’m a decent shot,” you say. 

Now he grins, just half his lips, but a real one all the same. “I remember.”

“Course you do, I was better than you.”

At your teasing, the grin snaps clean off his face and his real frown replaces it. “No’anymorre,” he slurs.

Your heart plummets. You can see, now, the bruised darkness beneath his closed eyes as you rub a small circle in the middle of his back. If you were already home you’d pull him into your arms, but he can’t rot on this stool all night. In your silence, Javier cracks one eye at you. “Can’t drive,” he groans.

“No shit,” you say, forcing a soft grin, and he mumbles some gibberish that sounds like it’s supposed to be Spanish. “Come on, work with me here.”

His eye shuts again as he grimaces, face still smushed against the bartop. His hair’s a mess so you comb it back, but the fucker still won’t budge. Rolling your eyes, you lift his arm and drape it over your shoulders to help him off the stool, his body warm and pliant. More solid than you remember him being before. Layers of slender muscle built up like the rings of a tree.

When he rises, gravity lurches and you stagger under his weight, catching yourself against the bar. 

“Careful now,” you warn him playfully. 

Javier turns his face towards yours, close enough in this awkward position that his nose presses against your cheek. He reeks of smoke and shitty whiskey. A little of sweat. You’d mock him for it if he were anywhere within a hundred miles of sober, but he’s a lost cause for now. Your arm fits snug around his waist. To his credit, he makes an effort to stay on his feet. Turns his head down to watch his boots as you walk him outside like he’s focusing intently on putting one foot in front of the other. You pinch his side and he hmphs at you. 

“Could’a just called, you know,” you say as you walk him to your car. The street is all empty parking spots and shuddered windows and packs of thirsty mosquitos, cicada song chirping densely in the air. Your car sleeps down the block alone, black as the sky and in need of a wash, green-strung beads hanging in a loop from the rearview mirror inside.

“Wanted t’ seeyou,” Javier says. 

You nudge your head against his cheek gently. “I missed you too,” you say.

As you drive, streetlamps stripe past the windows. Brick buildings sit squat and lightless, bodegas shackled for the night, and a wilful trash bag balloons with a passing breeze, blowing across the road with a quiet, swimming grace. In the passenger seat, Javier slumps against the door, temple pressed to the half-open window. You think he’s asleep until he licks his bottom lip. 

“Saw Lorraine,” he mumbles, those dark eyes closed away, like he can hardly keep himself awake.

You turn back to watch the empty road. Stop at the stop signs just for show. No one’s out here but you at this hour—Laredo is a ghost town.

“Heard Danny was gettin’ married,” you reply.

Javier exhales profoundly: slow, labored, loud. He’s always been a pouty drunk, but this is something else. “You weren’t there,” he says.

“Had to work.”

“Liar.”

You roll your eyes even though he isn’t looking at you to see. He’ll feel it. Always does. Drumming your fingertips against the steering wheel, you fight back a smirk. “Fucked one of the groomsmen last year,” you admit. “Didn’t feel like havin’ a reunion.”

When you glance at him again, Javier has opened his eyes a sliver to smirk at you, the corner of his mouth pulled into his dimpled cheek. “Julien?”

You frown at the road. “Mateo.”

“Shit,” mumbles Javier, still smirking.

“Somethin’ like that,” you agree.

At the next red light his eyes are closed again and despite the fact that he’s, what, thirty six now? Javier looks like a child to you. Spine hunched, torso sunken. Shoulders broader than ever but curled in on themselves, like if he only had the room he’d be small as a seed. Fetal and miserable. A thousand years older on the inside than anyone should ever have to be. 

“Starin’ a’me,” he scolds, his words slumping into each other.

You huff quietly, caught. “Shut up,” you say. “Just remindin’ myself what you look like. Think you got uglier.”

He growls darkly, unamused.

As you turn at the next light, the green-beaded rosary sways from the rearview mirror. If he had his eyes open Javier would recognize it. His mother’s—passed to you before she died. You aren’t one for praying but you’ll die with it in your hands, you think. That’s the kind of person she was to you. Eternal.

Beside you, Javier mutters something unintelligible, his breath fogging the window. 

“Hm?”

“Seein’ anyone yet?” he repeats, and shifts to loll his head back against the seatrest. 

You gasp softly, feigning offense. “Yet? Ouch, baby,” you tease.

“Didn’t mean it like that,” he grumbles.

“I know,” you say, as you turn into the suburbs. Quiet starter homes lurk in the dark, kids’ bicycles lying like skeletons in their yellowing lawns. “I’m being mean.” 

“I like y’mean,” Javier replies, and finally opens his eyes as if he can sense you’re getting close to home, even though he’s never seen this place. He stares through the windshield glazed and distant, and you try not to stare like you’re concerned. He looks destroyed, you think. Obliterated. Sure, you’ve kept up with the news. Devoured everything you could about the quest to tackle Escobar, terrified Javier’s name would appear in the black ink that stained your fingers, reporting he was dead. That he’d be another casualty, and you’d not have said goodbye.

You know you’ve got no clue what really happened down there. That you never will. But you can see it choking him, hanging from his neck like a noose that’s just biding its time before it pulls.

“Nah, it’s just me,” you say, dragging your eyes off him again. “Think the two weeks we dated was about the closest I ever came to love.”

You’re joking, all foxish grin, but Javier doesn’t laugh. He just stares into the middle distance looking like a ghost. “Sixteen,” he mumbles.

“What?” you say.

He sighs. “Was sixteen days,” he annunciates, and your heart sputters.

Then his face folds in on itself suddenly; he pales, then greens. “Gonna b’sick,” he says.

3:00 A.M.

“Christ, you got heavy,” you groan, hobbling slanted up your porch steps. Though more alert, Javier is no less useless in walking, and though he mumbles shame-riddled sorrys he can’t much help you here. You hold him tightly to you, fingers pinching into his hip as he leans, hot as a furnace against your side in the worst of summer. You don’t care.

It doesn’t matter that it’s been eight years. It could be forty, and if Javier showed up on your doorstep ready to fall, your response would only ever be give it to me. I’ll carry it.

He grunts as you prop him against the side of your house to fish out your keys. “All muscle,” he teases, voice deep and coarse.

“Glad you haven’t shed your ego,” you snark.

You give the door a shove as the lock turns. Javier tips his face up to look at the sliver of moon left out to wink from the sky as if he’s saying a prayer. He reeks of sick—his shirt stained in one spot on his chest where he failed to aim away from himself—and while he stares up at the dark rash of night you work open the buttons of his shirt to take it off. Despite puking in your car, he’s still too lost to the world to notice your hands until you’re halfway down. Maybe in another life you’d be staring at his chest as you uncover it. The broad slopes of muscle, his stomach, the dark path of hair trailing towards his jeans. But in this life, you aren’t that to each other. You don’t get to be. 

“Cariño,” Javier says, and one of his hands covers yours as you pinch the last button. Looking down at you now, concerned through hazy eyes. Summer hangs wetly in the air; his curls lay damp against his skin, licking his temples, the nape of his neck.

You shrug his hand off yours, offering a small grin. “Gotta get this in the wash, Javi,” you tell him. “Not allowed to get in my bed smelling like puke.”

Cicadas sing from their trees. Your house, small as it may be, is a welcoming place. All red bricks and white shutters. The swing on the porch sways behind Javier, giving the occasional squeak. You shuck his button-up off his shoulders and ball it in your hands before catching his eye. “Can I trust you to stay upright while I put this in the wash?” you ask, one eyebrow arched.

He scowls, all pouty bottom lip—trying to make you laugh, even now. You huff as if exhausted, sarcastic and a little pleased. He’s in there, the person you’ve loved. Somewhere buried.

When the laundry is running you find him on your porch swing, horizontal. One bare arm dangling off the seat, his eyes closed again. Skin that’s usually golden washed silver by moonlight. In this heat there’s no reason for you to cover him but still you feel the nagging urge. Even with you here with him, you hate the thought of anyone coming out onto their porches or lawns to see him like this—out of control. You rouse him just enough to lift his head so you can sit at the end of the swing, then lay his head in your lap. He hums. A low, gravelly sound of pleasure. Glad to feel you beneath him in this small way. 

“M’sorry, baby,” Javier murmurs groggily, nuzzling his cheek against your leg as you stroke the hair away from his face again. He’s flushed, damp and sweaty, and even with the shirt gone could use a shower but you’d never say so. At this point, you’ve seen him in every state—sunny and terrible and everything in between—and don’t fear any of them. Don’t hate any of them. Never could, because all of them are him, so how could you.

“Cleaned up your puke before,” you reply. “Nothin’ I haven’t seen.”

He sighs, and with no small effort rolls himself onto his back with a grunt—the swing sways with the movement, rocking you both. Then once more, this time to his other side to face you. You chuckle softly as he settles, one of his arms reaching behind you to wrap around your hips, and for a while you drift back and forth with the porch light off and the moon’s claw cutting through the dark.

It’d be something close to heaven if it weren’t for his pain.

“Wanted to call you,” Javier sighs, after a long while of cricketing quiet. “After—”

Nothing.

You wait.

The rest of whatever he was going to say dissolves, never follows. Never becomes something for you to hold, to know, to carry. He keeps all the weight.

“Could’ve,” you say, hand in his hair again, how he always used to like. Even when you were kids he always wanted to be touched. His head in your lap, your hand in his hair to scare off his bad dreams. You could never tell a soul without destroying him—and you never wanted to. The way you were for each other was just that: for each other. Everyone knew you were close, inseparable at school. But the depth of that bond was a secret no one had to know. How his body needed to be close to yours to settle, to breathe, sometimes to sleep.

Javier’s nose scrunches as he fights off some stabbing thought. You stroke your thumb across his temple, trying to get him to look at you, but he won’t. 

“Tell me,” you whisper. 

Two words you never say. A question you never ask. He’s so far past drunk he’s practically a child—maybe it’s wrong to ask him like this—but you’d do anything to relieve even one ounce of this suffering.

Eventually, he exhales deeply, breath warm against your hip. Behind you, you feel his hand stroke your back, slipping beneath the hem of your shirt. “Thought you’d hate me,” he mumbles.

Your heart splinters. Every cell in your body wants to pull him against you, pull him into you, swallow the ache. “Should know better than that by now,” you say. 

The shoulder he isn’t laying on bobs with what must be a shrug. “Been a while.”

“Been a long time,” you agree. Not angry, not bitter, not blaming—it’s been a long time. It’s nothing to you now but a fact. Seeing him again has erased the nag of your neglected longing.

With a gruff, Javier’s arm tightens around your back and he pulls himself closer, his forehead nuzzling your hip bone. “Feels like a’undred years,” he says, his voice hoarse and broken.

There isn’t anything you can do but card your fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp with featherlight nails. You let your head fall back against the brick of your house. Exhausted, but you won’t sleep. You’ll stay awake with him all night if he needs it, if he asks you. Even if he doesn’t. 

4:00 A.M.

“No more water,” he begs. “Please.”

In your kitchen, just the stove light on, he’s sobering. Not sober —but he can stand up on his own. Leaning back against your counter, both hands outstretched to rest upon the laminate. Cool light splits his face in half—one bright and weary, one lost to shadow. You roll your eyes and hold one hand out to accept his water glass which he passes you with a grateful sigh.

You listen to the harsh rush of water draining into the kitchen sink—a stark disruption to the eerie quiet of the middle of the night in which it feels like you and Javier are the only people left on earth. 

Behind you, Javier groans, watching the glass fill again.

“It’s for the nightstand, baby,” you assure him as you pass it back. 

He pouts at it, arms drooping at his sides. Trying again. Digging for your laugh. With expectant eyes you pick up his hand and cup it around the glass, and when you let go and he doesn’t drop it you let a smile creep slowly across your face. Satisfied, he straightens a little, swaying slightly, and nods. He looks down at the floor, his bare feet, and his face blues. Darkens like he’s remembering.

You lay the palm of your hand over the center of his chest and beneath it Javier’s heart throbs steadily. His lungs expand. His blood moves. Alive—whether he feels it or not—and a comfort to you. 

Though you’ve lived in this house only three years and Javier’s never once seen or stepped foot in it, he trails through the narrow halls to your bedroom like he knows it well. Sloppy footsteps, yes, and always with you behind him braced to catch any sudden fall, but he makes it in the end. Water sloshes over the lip of his glass as he sets it down. Then—still in his jeans, which hug his thighs so tightly you’re surprised he doesn’t try to peel them off—he crawls into your bed, on top of the duvet. In the doorway you pause to watch him and get a vision of another life in which he does this every night, at ease in your home because it’s his home too.

It is a terrible thought, weak and troubling. It’ll burrow if you let it, so you kick it away. While you strip free of your work clothes, you watch him in the small mirror above your dresser; his head flops into your pillows, cheek smushed, eyes sliding closed. Those dark lashes, those parted lips. Always exactly the same. He doesn’t even glance in your direction—he doesn’t need to peek at your body. He’s seen you before. You him.

“Was Mateo worse than me,” he asks from the bed, like he’s read your mind. No surprise. For years, you would’ve sworn he could.

You blush, though he’s not looking. “Javi,” you say softly.

“Sorry,” he sighs.

In a t-shirt, you pad around the other side of the bed to crawl over the covers and curl onto your side to face him, one hand beneath your cheek. “Sex in college is supposed to be bad,” you tell him, grinning.

His brows pinch together, bracketing his forehead. “Shouldn’t've been with you,” he mumbles.

Yes, he’s how you remember. Ever chasing some rabbit hole to plummet down to avoid the cavern to which he’ll give no name. He’s got one hand buried under his pillow—how easy it is to think of your things as his—and the other lies between you, limp. You take it in your own, pull it to your lips, and press them to his knuckles. “We were kids,” you say, sure to smile against the back of his hand so he’ll feel it.

He huffs. “Drunk.”

“That too.”

“Better now, I swear.”

You laugh. Can’t help it. Silver light from the moon puddles over you, illuminating half his face, the curve of his shoulder, the slope of his arm. Even miserable, probably in a blackout, one foot hanging sadly off the edge of the mattress, Javier is someone who draws laughter out of you with ease, same as when you were kids. You kiss the back of his hand again, still grinning, and watch the frown dissolve from his face. He’s always been beautiful in a way that never seemed fair, but you think it might be getting worse with age. No one should look so good in this state, but there he is.

“Sure hope so, baby,” you tease.

Now he cracks one dark eye to squint at you, the corner of his mouth loosening, curling into his cheek. Then there’s that dimple. Your heart patters. You’ve missed him. “Could show you,” Javier smirks.

You roll your eyes. “You aren’t showin’ me shit right now.”

His bottom pink pops again, pouting as he broods, yanking another chuckle from you while he murmurs something you miss. Something that ends with good though.

“Hm?” you say.

“You smell good though,” Javier murmurs, and though soft you hear it this time. That almost whine.

“Well, when you put it that way,” you tease, and like magic, he laughs. Smile lines crinkle beside his eyes, nose scrunching. Beautiful. It is, you think, the best of him—how he looks when he actually laughs. It takes over his face. 

As you both settle, he scooches closer on the bed, squeaking the mattress. You feel the warm plume of his breath whisper over your face as he sighs. He has, it seems, only a match of levity at a time. It sparkles, flares, and smokes out too quickly. 

It isn’t a frown that replaces it, but despair. “Gonna feel like shit tomorrow,” he mutters, no louder than a whisper. No need to speak any louder when you’re lying this close. Your lips press to his knuckles again and this time he squeezes your hand, the muscles in his forearm briefly tensing. Freckles dot his bicep like stars.

“You feel like shit right now,” you whisper in reply.

Javier nods, face folding like he wants to cry. But he almost never does, not even in front of you.

5:00 A.M. 

You drift into brief tides of sleep with the warmth of him around you, his face in the crook of your neck. For most of your life, you’ve chalked up the ease with which you touch each other to an echo of your childhoods—a time in which touch is given often and without judgment. There has never been hesitation between you, not in this way. Even now, eight years since the last time you saw him, Javier slots against you in a way that just feels right—new, broader shoulders and all. 

His slow, deep breaths warm your neck, your collarbone. You couldn’t wiggle out of his arms if you tried, and though it’s warm even with the window open, even with both of you on top of the covers, you don’t want to. Eight years is a long time to go without this.

When he stirs with a tortured groan, you nudge your lips against his forehead. “S’okay,” you mumble, and the whine that snakes out of him rattles your chest and slices clean through your heart. Wrapping a hand around the back of his head, fingers threading through curls, you pull him closer, and his arms tighten around your waist.

Maybe it should feel wrong when Javier nuzzles into your neck to kiss you softly beneath the jaw, but it doesn’t. 

“Baby—” he croaks, and you hush him, petting his hair.

You don’t want him to say it. You never say it. If he says it now, it’ll ruin you.

“I know, Javi,” you whisper, squeezing your eyes closed so tight you see a rain of stars. “I know.”

“Y’ never let me say it,” he mumbles against your throat, his breath fogging your skin.

“You don’t need to,” you say.

“Wanted to, you know,” he replies, his voice so gentle you feel it pass from his chest to yours in a shallow tremor.

You chuckle softly from the darkness behind your eyes, like opening them will break the spell. “Oh yeah? When?”

He shrugs, his body loose and boneless. The heat of him is making you sweat. 

“The whole time,” Javier mumbles, and you wish suddenly that he weren’t so close because he must hear the sudden racing of your heart. “Pensé que me casaría contigo.”

If he didn’t hear its racing, you think, there’s no way he misses when it stops. Your Spanish is mediocre at best but you catch fragments, piece it together. I thought I’d marry you.

Your forehead wrinkles as a sudden urge to cry slams into you, shattering your bones. At least you manage to pat his back teasingly, feigning coolness, steadiness. Pretending he hasn’t toppled you. 

“Think you’re confusing me and Lorraine, cariño,” you tease quietly, hopeful that the wetness in your eyes doesn’t taint your voice.

Silence stretches like an elastic threatening a snap, a sting, a burn. But Javier exhales in a way that feels like he’s asleep again, like all of this is just nonsense cooked up in some drunken dream. Soon sleep is dragging at you sweetly, loosening your limbs again. You grow heavy, face slack, your limbs indistinguishable from his. When he whispers again you hardly hear it and the words don’t stick. You’ll forget them when you next wake for real. But he says them all the same.

“Not confusin’ you with anybody.”

Then you’re gone, sucked away. Asleep.

6:00 A.M.

The yellow morning leaks through your bedroom. You wake to a glint in your eyes: sunlight reflecting off a picture frame on your dresser. You and Javier twenty years ago dressed for junior prom, hidden now by the blinding. Squinting, you groan a soft mph sound as you wake, desperate to bury yourself in sleep again. 

In your brief slumber the two of you have remained braided—two strands of clinging ivy. Against you, Javier groans, humming tiredly against your throat, and you feel his hand slip up the hem of your shirt again, his palm flat over your spine. 

Half asleep, you let him. 

Half asleep, you let yourself remember.

You’re twenty five again. Just a few years out of college, both of you home for the summer. Out in the long grass in Chucho’s yard, you stretch yourselves out to sunbathe in the Texas summer, watching bumblebees laze drowsily between blooming thistles. Beside you, Javier lies on his back with both hands cradled beneath his head while you read, those yellow aviators over his eyes.

“Could get a place together,” he says. So casual, so simply.

Looking up from your book, you see the pink collar of sunburn around his neck and grin to yourself. “We’d get sick of each other,” you lie.

Javier only shrugs, unaware, you think, that you spent all of college in love with him. In freshman year, you’d stumbled home together after a party and he’d kissed you against your front door, waking you from what you realized then had been a lifetime of slumber. You’d never considered kissing him before, but all of a sudden it was obvious. You thought this is what your lips should have been doing all this time.

But it never happened again. The sex was awkward, clumsy—you’d only done it once before—and you told yourself that’s why he never tried again. You never tried either. Now it’s a joke you tell each other, trying to make the other person blush. 

The thought of sharing an apartment with him sends a river of panic through your veins. It would kill you to watch him bring girls home. To watch him date someone else. It was bad enough watching Lorraine, and he left her.

“If you say so,” he says, looking not one bit disappointed.

Half asleep, you let yourself dream you said yes.

7:00 A.M.

You don’t know who leans in—if you tilt your head down or if Javier tilts his up, if it starts in your sleep—only that when you next stir the morning is darkening to gold and orange. Panels of windowed sunlight crawl slowly across your legs, and you are kissing.

Javier’s lips melt against yours. It’s nothing like when you were kids. Eighteen and nervous wrecks, your teeth always getting in the way.

It’s different now. You know how to kiss each other like you’ve had the practice, like it hasn’t been almost two decades since last you tried. Pliant and sleepy, his tongue licking gently into your mouth. His mustache scratches sweetly against your skin. When a breathy sound whimpers from you, he cups your jaw, his other arm locking snug around your waist. There’s no rush to it, no progression. You don’t strip down and fuck—both of you content with only this: the soft murmurs you breathe into each other. The lifetime of wanting in every kiss. 

Because you have wanted him, you realize. Not just in college, but before then and every day since. Maybe from the first day he walked into your sixth grade class and felt like home. Even these last eight years when you’d accepted that he was gone from your life for good, your friendship having reached the end of its life, you wanted him.

He grunts when you nibble gently at his bottom lip, and you smile. Then he moans. And it’s perfect, somehow, like he’s dug around in the cabinets of your mind to know exactly how you want to be kissed. Deeply, patiently. All tongue and breath and yielding lips, your hands in his hair, the fire of him enveloping you.

You say nothing; you talk with your touch.

He stripes his tongue along your bottom lip: I’m sorry.

You tug at his curls: I’m sorry.

He kisses the corners of your mouth: I’m sorry.

You lick the hinge of his jaw: I’m sorry.

His thumb strokes the apple of your cheek: I’m sorry. I’m falling asleep.

You tilt your head to better taste him: I don’t want to fall asleep.

But you do. The tide drags you out, your body molten, exhausted, hypnotized. Your lips still touching as you fall into a dream.

8:00 A.M.

When next you open your eyes, you’ve rolled towards the window and the weight and warmth of his arms is gone. You don’t bother turning over. Don’t bother reaching for him. 

You know the bed will be empty on his side, cold. 

[tenoch-hq]

I’m a guy with a lot of knowledge, I’m a people person, that’s my way of being, Being a leader, I learned it from my father, He said “I want to see you ready for anything.” Tenoch Huerta talks about his Father in Voices Rising: The Music from Wakanda Forever | Episode 2

[kedsandtubesocks]

you, my golden hour

Rancher!Javier Peña x Cowgirl!Reader

summary: 1997. as a fallen rodeo star, you can handle anything - except maybe your city’s hometown hero

warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY MDNI, Post Season 3 Javi works on his family’s ranch AU, unspecified age gap (only age mention is reader can drink and Javi is older), major pining & yearning, emotional hurt & comfort, light angst with tender fluff, reader has a backstory and family, no physical description of reader but gendered language is used and reader can ride a horse, use of pet/nicknames, mention/description of rodeo accident, themes of dealing with burnout, small texas town toxicity, light Spanish use, reader & javi having insecurities they bond/heal over, bar scene with alcohol consumption, spicy moments with allusions to smut, intense makeout where Javi gets handsy, soft!Javi, dreamy & protective!Javi

word count: 10.2k (I’m sorry)

a/n: the second installment of ‘let’s rodeo’ and my love letter to Javi & Texas, the heart of this series - this fic is near & dear to me and I just appreciate getting the chance to write this, so to @lowlights @ahauntedcowboy & @perotovar for giving me the courage to post this know I’m so grateful… and to you reading this thank you, so dearly appreciate you too ♡

You haven’t thought of Javier Peña in years.

Older than you, he was handsome and had a smile that rivaled the Texas Friday night lights. He eventually hooked up with the number one town sweetheart who was even rumored to have won a local state beauty contest.

By the time you heard of their engagement, you already had started your plans for the circuits, for the road. You didn’t mourn or even feel heartbroken over the news.

Even after that, the rodeo consumed you. It kept you in a tornado like whirl for years until that fateful day it spat you out.

When that ride stopped, Javier Peña came back into your mind with a strange fog-like entrance.

While still on bed rest, the news on the TV had been showing a small special on the War on Drugs and the lull of it filled the room.

Your grandmother was the one who brought him up.

“That’s what Chucho’s son is involved in.”

“Wait, Javier Peña’s into drugs?” You asked a bit confused even without the pain killers.

“No. He’s going after the people who sell drugs.” She clarified.

Oh.

“He also didn’t get married either. Do you remember?” She had added.

You did. You heard he left the little Miss Homecoming Queen at the altar. Quite a scandal that made him the talk of the town for a while.

Then he became a big shot drug enforcer who took down one of the largest drug cartels in history and he again became the talk of the town.

It’s been a few years since your accident and now Javier Peña is back home.

Now driving into the Peña ranch you feel both so young, yet so aged at the same time, like you’re stuck between two realities.

Your sister bounces out of the truck with uncontainable glee and you’re grateful she’s excited.

Chucho Peña comes to greet everyone. His classic cream cowboy hat and gentle smile are all a beautiful welcome. It’s also adorable seeing your grandpa reunite with his old friend.

Señor Peña’s kind eyes eventually land on you with a sweet twinkle.

“It’s good to see you, mija.”

You’ve always adored Chucho Peña.

His son on the other hand…

You never knew Javier enough to fully know him. Even with his dad and your grandpa being pals, the years between you and Javier didn’t help. He existed outside your orbit, a figure almost out of reach.

“And that son of yours!?” Your grandpa of course perks up asking about him.

“Ah sí Javi’s here, just out in the stables.” Chucho explains casually.

The last time you physically saw Javier Peña he was walking out of the bank. You’d been waiting in your family truck when he stepped out. By that point, a small bit of shadow was forming against his jaw and upper lip as his facial hair began to grow thick. He was a young man on the verge of stepping into the threshold of being grown.

Now before you he’s a fully grown man.

For a minute you think the man in the barn is someone else because it doesn’t seem like Javier.

Yet when he turns, you see his eyes.

Rich soil of the earth stunning eyes and you know it’s him.

His body has filled out and his shoulders even look broader. He sports a similar mustache like his father’s and it adds to his older appearance. There’s a weathered weariness on his face evident in the wrinkles carved out by his eyes and on his forehead.

The button up shirt he’s wearing allows a peek at his chest and his skin shines with sweat from the Texas sun already shining its warmth.

He’s breathtakingly stunning and you can’t take your eyes off him.

He warmly greets your grandpa with a wide smile that touches his eyes and brightens his face. He’s still that charming young man you saw, a brilliant comet out of your galaxy.

But then his gaze lands on you and his eyes narrow. A conflicting recognition and confusion swirl in his eyes. He knows you, seems to remember you, but not fully.

His dad clarifies your name and you deflate a bit. Then Javier’s eyes go wide and his eyebrows shoot into his hairline.

So, he does remember you.

“Oh, yeah. Good to see you.” He nods fully realizing who you are.

“Guess the horse must be for you then?” Javier adds and your heart sinks a bit.

A grimace tugs on your face but you try recovering quickly.

“No mijo,” Chucho thankfully answers quick and gentle. “I told you, it’s for her hermanita.”

You grin small and tight in agreement.

“Oh…yeah of course.” He nods.

Your little sister immediately jumps in bright and eager to share her excitement. Thankfully the focus effortlessly shifts to her and the reason why you’re all here.

The horse is beautiful, playful and eager for attention. This first meeting already feels good. Of course, everyone holds their breaths when your sister goes for the ride.

And it couldn’t have gone more smoothly.

You even exhale relieved.

“You seemed nervous.” A smooth warm voice comes out besides you.

As you lean against the ring’s fence you discover Javier Peña moving to rest beside you.

“Just like the first day of school kinda nerves. Want to make sure everything goes smoothly.” You answer as your sister effortlessly trots around the ring with ease.

“Yeah, I bet. They already seem to be clicking.” Javier notes genuine and you’re grateful too.

Your grandfather now calls out to you.

Both you and Javier turn towards where the older men stand close to each other like conspiring headaches.

“To celebrate, we’re having dinner here!” Your grandpa cheers happily and a dread drop kicks your heart.

Immediately you stammer out panicked about how you all can’t impose.

“No pasa nada, mija.” Senor Peña gently reassures you saying not to worry. “Besides, you’re all more than welcome here. It’s been a while since Javi and I had guests.”

You don’t miss the unashamed hum Javier makes.

“And grandma?” You reply, trying to reach for more excuses not to stay.

“She can walk.” Your sister teases suddenly and you give her a sharp look.

“Will you go pick her up, please?” Your grandpa gives you his best pleading face before simply throwing the truck keys to you

Stubborn old man.

“Hijo,” Señor Peña calls out again, but this time to his son. “You should go too.”

Shit.

“No Pop, it’s okay!” Javi politely declines and you want to second that.

“Aye,” His dad chides and then he pointedly gives Javier a look that screams - Don’t be rude, go with her.

Damn.

The walk to the truck is quiet, awkward as hell, feels like two parents shoving their kids together to play nice.

Heading into the main part of town, silence fills most of the drive. You're also mentally kicking yourself for not getting the radio fixed last week like you should’ve.

“So uh, your grandma…still volunteering at the women’s shelter?” Until Javier offers a small branch of conversation.

“Yup.” You nod.

“Oh good, that’s good.” He replies.

But silence returns.

“So, you taking a break from the rodeo then? Pop used to tell me about you all the time.” Javier comments light, casual.

You feel like a cat with its hairs standing up. But even with that sensation, knowing Señor Peña spoke so fondly of you does simmer the sting.

“Sort of.” You decide to rip this off like a bandaid, get it over with now. “Had a bad accident a while back. Still haven’t decided if I wanna return.”

It’s been two years since you’ve been home.

“Oh…” Javier’s voice drops, the same way everyone does when you tell them.

“I’m sorry.” Except you’re surprise at how sincerely soft his voice is. “I thought I heard something about it. I should’ve fucking remembered… Sorry.”

He apologizes again, surprising you once more as genuine repentance floats off his voice.

You thank him understandingly. After all, it's one of the better responses you’ve been given. But you don’t want to dig into this, especially with him, so you quickly change the conversation.

“So how long are you here for? I’m sure there must be other drug cartels waiting for you to take them down.” You offer casual.

Not only had he taken down Pablo Escobar a while back, you briefly heard of his very recent grand move against the other cartel in Columbia.

He’s impressive, the town’s hero and golden boy.

“Uh actually, I’m retired. Gonna take a step back for a bit.” Javier answers just as polite and calm as you had answered him.

Oh. You hadn’t heard that. Or maybe you did and forgot.

You now feel like the foolish one and genuinely congratulate him.

“It takes a lot to decide when to step away. Besides, you deserve a break after all you did.” You mean those words.

After all, they were the same comforting words his father told you when you came back home.

A pause fills the truck and you worry you’ve maybe overstepped.

“I…yeah.” Javier breathes out. “Thanks. Appreciate that.”

Your heart flutters at how small and genuine he sounds.

“So…how about them Dallas Cowboys, huh?” Javier offers light and for some reason you laugh.

It’s not much, but it feels like a lifeline.

When you arrive to pick up your grandmother she gasps so giddy when she sees the surprise guest with you. Her excitement lights up the drive while she talks about her day taking full advantage of having Javier listening to her.

“Oh I’m so glad you’re back home safe Javi!” She gushes and then says your name.

You’re already panicking.

“With so many of your friends living out of town, maybe you’ll get to spend more time back in the city with Javier!?” She offers to you brightly and absolute horror seizes your heart.

Shooting a petrified face at her you silently plead for this discussion to die.

Javier in the back seat weakly laughs. Because of course Javier, ever the gentleman, had your grams sitting up front.

“Oh don’t give me that look.” Your grandma playfully teases back at you. “At least go rent a movie with him.”

The thought crosses your mind about turning around and dropping her back off.

“Did you know,” Javier innocently jumps in. “The first ever blockbuster was opened in Dallas?”

Your grandma coos in awe as if he’s just explained a miracle.

“See! Now you have to go with him to one!” She urges.

A horrified indignant noise escapes you. While behind you, Javier snickers even more and you’re tempted to drop him off on the side of the road to let the coyotes feast on him.

The minute you arrive at the Peña’s home you can’t get out of the truck fast enough.

Dinner fortunately goes smooth and you’re surprised at how eased the rest of the time unfolds. You do hate how many times your eyes flicker towards Javier like if you’re still trying to soak him in.

Then, from across the table, Javier’s gaze flickers to you fast catching you staring red handed. Your heart transforms into a jackrabbit, petrified and thumping fast, almost making you flee right then and there.

Until your grandpa addresses you. His warm eyes dance with a surprise in his gaze.

“We’ve decided to have some of your sister's training here.”

Your heart now skips over itself.

Your gramps and sister both explain the plan hatched while you were on the road. In order to get used to competing in different spaces, your sister decided to train here at the Peña’s.

You’re hesitant, but understand the logic. You’re even impressed. But you can’t pinpoint why you’re so nervous about this.

Señor Peña now calls to you, sensing your hesitation, and tenderly grins.

“Don’t worry mija,” his kind eyes crinkle with understanding. “It’s no trouble at all.”

His reassurance is grace and you smile back relieved while thanking him deeply.

“Seems like you’re the boss here.” Javier suddenly joins in with a casual tone and you freeze.

“Well yeah, that’s my coach you’re talking to.” Your sister proudly declares.

“Coach?” Javier’s voice perks up curious.

“Yeah.” You answer with a small smile. “That’s me.”

“Been barking orders at me all these years so why not put her in charge.” Your sister innocently adds and in pure sobbing annoyance you want to shove her face into her plate.

Thankfully everyone laughs, illuminating the room.

But you’re faced with a new reality. You’re going to be here more, seeing Javier Peña more.

And you don’t know how you feel about that yet.

-

The Peña ranch in the morning sits tranquil and the peace gives you the focus on training.

You’re surprised at how good your sister and the mare already bond. You explain a few drills and have your sister run a few repetitions of them.

“You sound like a tough one.” Javier’s voice surprises you and you almost jump over the fence.

Glancing back, he approaches you with two thermoses.

“Pop and I thought you might need an extra pick me up.” He offers and you can’t help but greedily grab at it.

“Tell your dad thanks and that he’s a saint.”

Javier snorts at your reply.

Now your focus returns to your sister. You recommend a type of turning drill vividly remember doing yourself. Your sister playfully salutes you and begins.

“How she looking, coach?” Him calling you ‘coach’ draws a dangerous electricity that snaps up your spine.

“Don’t call me coach.” You dryly tell him trying to keep yourself composed.

“Well isn’t that what you are?” He teases casually.

Your face scrunches up annoyed while his eyes crinkle amused.

“Don’t you have things to do, Javier Peña?” You sigh, already exhausted of this man.

“Javi…you can just call me Javi, coach.”

You’re tempted to childishly scoot away from him. Younger you would have never imagined he was this annoying.

“Don’t call me coach.” You dully repeat.

“Okay, coach.”

Now you contemplate just shoving him away.

But all the annoyance washes away when commotion hits. The horse makes a disgruntled whinny and immediately both you and Javier whip your attention towards the ring. Your sister calmly stays on the saddle, gently soothing down her companion.

After asking if she’s good, her eased thumbs up reassures you. She does a few trots to calm everyone down. You even exhale relieved.

“You lost in thought?” Javier comments.

“Yeah.” You answer him with a mutter. “Just thinking.”

“About?”

You almost don’t tell him. But you surprise yourself and do.

You explain the type of pace that comes with training in barrel racing. There’s a pattern and method to it all. You don’t realize you’ve rambled until you blink and realize Javier stares so directly at you. His eyebrows furrow slightly as if he’s focused hard listening to your words.

Embarrassed, you’re about to stammer out an apology when Javier whistles low.

“You know your fucking shit.” He nods appreciatively and hearing his pride ignites something dangerous in your chest.

Another surprise sharp whistle comes. Out from the barn, a further ways away, Chucho stands staring out. He even waves at you and you wave back.

“You gonna work today, hijo?” He calls out.

Javier curses under his breath.

“Busted.” You joke and now he’s the one side eying you.

“Please you’re the one slacking off here!” Your baby sister suddenly complains loud and cheeky “You’re not getting paid by the hour, coach!”

“Guess we’re both in trouble.” Javier snickers.

You roll your eyes but quickly sneer at your smiling sister.

“Alright then. See ya later…bandita.” Javier already walks away by the time you hear his goodbye.

But it hits you.

He thankfully stopped calling you coach. But now, what replaced it…

Little Bandit.

The nickname rips through you with a barbed fierceness you’re not prepared for.

The rest of the month follows this same routine.

On training days Javier shows up with something for you to drink. Once he even came with a few goods from the bakery across town.

No matter what, he watches practice with you for as long as he can before getting called back to the ranch.

During these moments together, he asks about how the turns are made or why you correct your sister when you do. It’s friendly. You actually start enjoying his company especially when your grandfather so eagerly leaves to hang out with Chucho instead.

The greetings and thanks are always the same.

“Thanks, Peña.”

“Javi,” he patiently corrects you everytime.

You can’t bring yourself to call him that just yet.

At the start of the new month everyone sleeps in and arrives later to the Peña’s ranch.

This time you’ve brought more barrels. Thankfully you can move them with the help of your sister. Suddenly besides you, boots clamor onto the truck and rapidly you snap your attention to the source of the sound.

Javier Peña smoothly climbs up to help you with the rest of the barrels.

He’s in a striking soft purple button up shirt. Sweat already shines against his bare arms. Thick worn in working gloves cover his hands. His hair seems a bit curlier today and he wears aviator sunglasses that suit his face.

Effortlessly Javier grabs onto one and lifts it by himself.

You’re stunned. Even your sister stops and stares just as surprised.

Javier is strong. Doesn’t seem like the muscular type but he’s built and radiates a type of seasoned strength of a well grown man, a rancher man.

His arms firmly hold the barrel, sturdy and toned, and you can’t look away.

“Where d’ya want me to put it?” Javier yells and you trip out of your thoughts to dumbly point where the barrel needs to be placed.

Your grandfather whistles proudly seeing Javier.

“If this rancher thing doesn’t work out for you Jav, you got the makings of a fine rodeo man.” Your grandpa teases.

Javier chuckles, with his eyes averted a bit bashful.

“Could add him to the team.” Your grandpa notes with a twinkling gleam of something mischievous.

You reply a dry no as you move to get off the truck.

In a flash, Javier jogs over and immediately reaches his hand out to help you get down. Placing your hand in his, Javier helps you down and you thank him.

He’s wearing gloves. This shouldn’t feel so significant. Yet the way he firmly holds your hand makes your heart sprout wings.

Even back on the solid dirt ground your legs don’t feel as if they’re under you.

Javier doesn’t stick around after that and you’re allowed to focus.

It’s later in the day, later than the usual practice times, and the Texas sun beats down with a fierceness. You call for more water breaks to keep everyone hydrated.

During a break, a rustling catches your attention. There towards the barn, Javi moves in and around the place.

You just catch the smallest glimpse of him with a hammer in his hand as he heads into the smaller enclosure. Curiosity gets the best of you.

Grabbing another water bottle you justify it as wanting to be polite, but curiosity gnaws at you.

The clang of hammering approaches louder and louder until you spot him in a goat pen. He hammers in a reinforced slab, probably fixing a hole. His back to you allows a glorious full sight of his broad shoulders at work.

He even switches to a drill and watching him casually use power tools, you never thought you’d find this so attractive.

One of the goats nearby makes a blep of a noise at your appearance and you almost want to shush them.

Javier glances over his shoulders spotting you.

“Hey there, bandita. Qué pasó?” he nods at you as the nickname flares up your heart.

“Just…knew how hot it was getting and gramps told me just to check up on you.” You lie waving the water bottle.

Javier turns to face you and you’re greeted with the sight of his full sweaty glory. You should be turned off seeing how bad his shirt sticks to him, how he smells of hay and dirt, but it’s incredibly hot.

The hard work of his day evident on every inch of him brews a dark cloud of desire in you.

“Oh well, tell your gramps thanks.” He replies snagging the water bottle from you.

His plus lips, the glorious sight of his thick slick neck, and the movement of the sweat just covering him as he drinks from the water bottle…

Getting this weak over the sight of him just drinking a water bottler you now think is the lowest you can go. You wonder about walking down by the river nearby and just jumping in to cool down.

From a distance, your sister yells out for you.

“Duty calls.” Javier smirks. With a sheepish smile you shrug then wave a quick goodbye.

You practically run out of that barn like a fleeing field mouse.

Later that night, alone in your room, your fingers slip under your sheets to slide under your sleep shorts. You imagine licking the sweat off Javier’s neck, picture his thick strong fingers, that fix up barns, hoist up barrels, and wonder how thick they would feel inside you.

You fall into desire’s blissful sticky release.

When you shower the next morning, you rationalize that those thoughts of Javier simply come from needing to scratch an itch.

Besides, you couldn’t get tangled with Javier. He’s older. He’s Laredo’s golden boy. He doesn’t go after broken cowgirls like you.

In the shower you turn the heat up more. A part of you hopes it will scorch off the building desire in your heart.

-

The morning is muggy, a soupy cloudy early day begging you to curl back into bed. Soft chirping echoes of the mockingbirds fill the air. You opted for earlier practices this week so your sister could prepare for a trip with her friends coming up. You agreed, wanting her to still enjoy moments outside of this.

“You out here all alone, bandita?” Javier.

He breaks the morning’s stillness. Holding his routine two drinks, he approaches you bundled up in a nice jacket that flatters him.

Thanking him, you greedily grab the drink and savor its warmth.

You explain that your sister is free roaming around the ranch this morning and it’s why you’re all alone. You stare at the empty riding area where the dirt sits holy and untouched.

“Do you miss it?” Javier asks. His voice is quietly probing, gentle as the morning mist.

That question holds a million answers all tied up in a messy knot.

“Sometimes.” You answer truthfully because you did. You missed the adrenaline, the wind blowing past you, speeding around a barrel so fast it was like you were out running the wind.

“Can I ask…” Javier and his soft, kind voice presses on. “What happened?”

Might as well. You’re now sort of friends with Javier even though the word feels sticky in your heart.

“You know that saying about how you just gotta get back on the horse? Well it's easier said than done.” You mutter.

It happened during a ride in Arizona. You’ve fallen and wrecked before. But this one just felt different. You took a barrel close and then everything slipped away. You remember being on the saddle, remember feeling your body float. Then the world went dark.

You woke up to a nasty concussion, a broken arm, and a couple of rowdy scrapes. You don’t remember your foot getting caught in the stirrup, but that’s what had happened.

“Holy fuck...” Javier breathes out, the weight of your words hang in his. “Shit I’m sorry.”

You thank him earnestly and reassure him it’s fine, just unfortunate shit like that happens. Everyone knew how dangerous the sport could get. The rodeo was a rough ride and every cowboy knew that.

But for you, you just couldn’t shake it off.

“I’m glad you made it out.” Sincerity blooms in his voice and your lips tug grateful at how considerate he is as you thank him again.

“You haven’t gone back?” Now he dances on a tight line.

“Nope. I tried after getting the clearance from the doctors but… it just didn’t go well.” You truthfully tell him.

You didn’t want to ride anymore, didn’t want to face everyone or the pressure of the race or the terror swallowing you whole. It felt as if you were burnt dry and exhausted from the inside out.

Your grandma gently embraced you and held you for what felt like hours.

“Then don’t go. You don’t have to do anything that makes you this worried and sick. Nothing is worth you being this scared, not even the damn rodeo.” She told you tenderly and with the most profoundly kind smile. You cried out of relief.

“It’s brave,” Javier says so firmly understanding. “Making a decision like that is really fucking brave, hard as fuck too.”

You gently grin and thank him again while blinking away a few tears.

“Same goes for you too.” You tell him.

From your gramps, who had gotten the full story from Chucho, you learned more about what happened with Javier and his final days in Columbia.

“I don’t know much but, what you did was brave too.” Your voice comes out softer than you expected.

He barks a laugh now. It’s dry, bitter, and can catch fire.

“Doesn't feel like it.”

You understand maybe more than he even knows. So you think about maybe what you would’ve told yourself.

“You did what was right.” You begin. “Everyone else might judge you or say shit but it doesn't matter. You’re not meant to please everyone or do what everyone expects you to do. And if that’s seen as a bad thing then…I don’t know, fuck them and fuck that.”

You say it so simply Javier busts out laughing. It’s a true blue laugh, so sweet it crinkles his beautiful dirt road eyes.

You’ve never seen him laugh like this before. And he’s beautiful.

You join in snickering as well but try to ignore the butterflies suddenly nesting in your stomach.

He’s really such a dream. A carved out Texas man so seasoned from the world, yet he still stays so kind and devoted to his family.

You get why many in the town, especially the girls during your time in high school, are all over him. Now you’re afraid you might’ve fallen into the same pit traps they did.

You’re falling under the spell of Javier Peña.

“So you’re really not going back to catching drug dealers and what not?” You ask when the laughter settles.

“I could’ve.” Javi answers. “Damn DEA would’ve taken me back. But…I just couldn’t see a future with it anymore.”

“And now here I am.” He says with a boyish soft grin.

“Now here you are”. You repeat with a nod.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here.” You truthfully tell him. You knew his dad worried about him. But the quiet truth is that you’re grateful for this time getting to know him now.

His eyes soften and your heat bursts.

“Thanks, glad I’m here. Glad you’re here too, bandita.” Then he softly nudges you. It’s playfully, friendly but it’s his words that almost take you out by the knees.

“Anyway, the government’s dumb. They don't deserve you.” You nod and Javier snorts amused.

“Guess I should listen to a cowgirl like you.” He teases.

You shrug. “Some people say I’m not one anymore.”

Especially because you didn’t ride anymore.

“Fuck them and fuck that.” He repeats your words and your lips twitch with a bubbling giggle.

Right now, it feels like you and him are two lonely birds sitting on a wire. Yet there’s something comforting about it, knowing it’s with him.

Then it dawns on you. You enjoy spending time with him. You know there’s desire already trickling in for him. But now he’s becoming someone precious to you.

You can’t even deny that anymore.

“Thanks, Javi.”

You don’t miss the way his eyebrows shoot up high.

Thunder roars suddenly clashing into the air interrupting the moment.

The dark clouds now loom on the horizon and coat the morning in an impending murkiness.

“Guess a storm’s coming in.” Javi mumbles.

Thankfully your sister rides back in quick and Javi decides to do some final things around the ranch before the storm rolls in. Before the rain comes, you and your sister pack up quickly. But it’s too late.

The rain pours down in a blink, almost like a hole in the sky popped to let a faucet drain out. The wind even picks up dangerously quick. It’s chaotic trying to wrangle the hose back to the stables but you and your sister manage.

“Come inside!” Gramps yells from the Peña’s porch and you and your sister scurry to the shaded sanctuary.

“You coming in?” Your sister asks while drying herself off with a towel. You don’t move from your spot by the steps.

“I’ll be in a bit.” You reassure her. She glares suspiciously and you shoo her away.

Javi hasn’t come back yet.

Noises clang out from the barn. A poisonous worry erupts through you and immediately you rush back out into the rain.

Inside the barn Javi tries yanking up a barn ladder that’s fallen over. It’s sturdy, wooden, and stuck in a hard position.

You move to help. Without any words or having to explain anything you both, as a team, work to yank the ladder out. Patiently and slowly the ladder gets moved to a spot the wind won’t knock it over.

The rush of it all has you breathing heavy.

“Thanks bandita.”

You breathlessly laugh and turn to maybe make a joke about now becoming a ranch hand and stealing his job. But all words, all thoughts, die instantly.

Having to work together to push the ladder, you now notice how close you are to him.

The sight of Javi soaked to the bone from the rain is corruptible. His clothes stick to him showing off his thick frame and shoulders. His drenched hair now seems darker with the curls more pounced.

He’s also heavily breathing too.

Now his lips, how soft and wet they look, have you hypnotized.

The pattering rain pours down hard on the roof, the only noise in the barn. You notice a shift in Javier. His eyes ever so slightly soften, almost hazing over. You might just be imaging it, but his face gradually seems to lean closer. Or maybe, you’re the one leaning towards him.

You’re possessed with an ache to kiss him, to see how the rain tastes on his lips.

It’s just you and him, soaked to the bone. You probably look like a drenched mess of a creature, but you’ve never wanted someone this much.

“Aye!”

Chucho suddenly shouts out from outside the barn and your heart stops.

Like a skittish roadrunner, you scramble away fast from Javier and just in time. His dad walks in from the other side of the barn holding an umbrella with an extra in his hand.

“You kids okay?” He calls out.

Both you and Javi yell back, quickly moving towards the elder Peña.

“You two look like a couple of soaked barn cats.” Chucho teases.

You weakly laugh and thank him for the umbrella.

Javi grumbles at his dad while he grabs the umbrella to open it up. Ever chivalrous, Javier holds it above you and him. Yet the entire walk to the house is quiet.

Fuck. Did you ruin this tentative whatever was forming between you and him? Or were you just imagining things?

You stay quiet the rest of the time waiting out the storm.

“You okay?” Your sister, keen as always, notices.

You lie with a smile saying the weather’s getting to you. When in reality, it’s a man that has.

Because you can’t stop thinking about Javier Peña now.

-

The rain stays for the rest of the week and everyone takes the schedule changes with stride. Your sister even heads out earlier on her trip earlier during a lighter drizzle.

By Saturday night the storm settles down.

Your closest friend from high school, now back in town for the month, even calls your home phone begging you to take advantage of the better weather.

“Look, before I go back to Florida let’s enjoy a nice night out, yeah? Maybe play some pool?” She pleads.

It’s how you now find yourself at the bar. You haven’t gotten dressed up in a while and you’re reminded of how nice it feels.

As much as you jokingly fussed about going out, being with your best friend laughing at the bar is lovely.

Ricky, one of the bartenders, actually was in the same grade as you two and it’s nice reminiscing, snickering over a nice drink.

“So how’s it been hanging out with Mr. Hero of the town himself?” Your friend smirks.

You make an unamused face at her while Ricky perks up.

“Wait, who are you hanging out with?” He whispers excitedly.

“Javier Peña.” Excitedly, she spills and you roll your eyes when Ricky gasps.

“You’ve fallen for the guy half the county is in love with!?” He hisses. You hate it, but it’s true and tastes soberly cold.

“Okay but practically all of our class was and maybe still is in love with him.” Your best friend adds.

“Well y’all do remember, he left Lorraine Wilson at the altar right?” Ricky reminds everyone and your mouth turns acidic.

“Oh fuck you’re right.” Your friend whispers.

“Might be bad news.” Ricky tensely tells you.

You want to hiss that he’s not like that. He’s kind, a bit annoying, but with a good heart.

“Shit, speak of the devil and he shall appear.” Ricky says in a low awed tone.

Worried you whip around to see what caught his attention. Absolute horror drowns you.

Javi and another man step into the bar and you want to run.

Your best friend squeals excited beside you, but you can’t comprehend what she says. Javier has stolen your attention.

Ricky called him the devil and he does seem like an angel dipped in temptation.

The sleek blazer he wears is dressed down by his nice button up shirt and jeans. His hair is styled nice, seeming so soft and begging for someone’s fingers to run through it. A buzz swarms in your head seeing him outside the ranch looking this gorgeous.

That’s when he spots you. For a split moment you two see each other. His eyes widen and before anyone can react you whip back towards the bar.

“Looks like you’re about to fall outta your seat.” Ricky snickers and you death glare at him.

“Okay,” your friend nudges you. “The guy he’s with, I think that’s David Martinez. He was in Peña’s class right? He’s so hot now, what the fuck?” She breathes out.

You almost toast to that because you felt the same about Javier.

So you keep your head down, enjoy your drink and maybe wonder about suggesting that game of pool your best friend advertised.

“Would you two beauties be alright with a bit of company?” A sweet male voice comes out and immediately draws the attention to him.

Behind you stands Javier Peña and his friend.

David has always been kind to your family and his mom even worked with your grandma at the shelter. You appreciate that Javi still hangs out with him.

“Yes of course. We’d love some company, right?” Your friend brightly asks you and you smile polite.

Your heart however rages like it’s a wild bucking bronco trying to break free.

The guys buy a round of drinks. Everyone laughs reminiscing about that one famous senior prank where the class managed to get two cows into the school.

The atmosphere is friendly, light. But your eyes constantly flicker nervously to Javi. You can’t stop staring at him, can’t stop thinking about him. Now here he is a Texas dream, or maybe your nightmare.

You turn back to take another sip and in that shift, your best friend turns to direct all her attention to David who moves to sit beside her.

But now Javier smoothly slides into the barstool next to you.

“Nice to see you outside the ranch.” His voice comes out smooth and rich.

You agree. But the air turns awkward, as if neither of you know how to tackle this new situation.

Suddenly heels clicking fast arrive. Standing to the side is a girl you recognize from your sister’s class that just graduated high school.

“Hi,” she smiles, staring at Javi with obvious hearts in her eyes.

He politely but cautiously greets her back.

“I was, um, wondering if you wanted to maybe dance with me?” She’s bold. You can at least appreciate that.

“My friends all dared me to ask you since it’s, ya know, you.” She gushes and giggles.

“Uh, appreciate the thought but I’ll have to pass, sorry.” He turns her down gently.

As if she finally realizes you even existed her eyes blink to you.

“Oh hey!” She recognizes you as an older sister to one of her classmates. And then for something else.

“Yeah didn’t you like, used to be a rodeo cowgirl or something and then something happened so now you’re not doing anything anymore?”

She’s being underlyingly mean. Her misleading chipper tone, vapid smile, are all soaked in venom meant to shake you or even scare Javi away from you.

But you’re used to it by now. You’re about to comment how she shouldn’t even be here.

Javier however speaks first and fast.

“Hey,” Javier’s voice jumps shockingly sharply, almost reprimanding. Your eyes go wide at how fast he reacts. He even glares at the girl.

Besides you, your best friend immediately turns around.

“Oh hey!” She greets the young newcomer. “Weren’t you that girl caught buying weed only for the cops to figure out you were actually buying oregano?”

Her cheerful tone makes you bust out a snort because yeah, she’s right.

The girl’s face falls absolutely mortified.

“Now get the fuck out of here.” Your dear friend finishes sweet but the undercurrent of her voice looms threatening. The disgraced girl rushes away before she can even reply.

You wheeze into your hand and fondly lean against your dearest sweet friend.

“If she or any of her little punk ass friends try anything again, I’ll shove my heel so far up their asses.” She reassures.

“Don’t worry,” Ricky now jumps in. “I’m definitely telling our bouncer those little shits managed to sneak in.”

Gratitude carves out an ocean in you and you’re thankful for those who understand.

David whistles appreciatively and your friend, with a reassuring squeeze to your shoulder, returns to her discussion with him.

You feel Javier’s eyes burning on you.

“Does shit like that happen often?” His concerned and low voice floats out among the music.

You shrug.

“Back when I first came back it did, but it's dying down.”

You were supposed to be a big rodeo star. You even had an official big name brand sponsorship lined up. But, after the accident, not returning to the rodeo painted you a failure in the eyes of the town.

Especially compared to its bright shining star you sit beside.

Suddenly a warmth slides over your hand resting on the bar. Javier squeezes your hand gently, a reassuring comfort.

“I’m sorry.” He mutters deeply sad. “S’fucking awful.”

You thank him, even make a dry joke about small town bullshit which earns you a small dry chuckle.

“The shit I got after Lorraine…” he sighs and now you find his hand doesn’t leave yours. You don’t want it to.

“I get it. Shit’s brutal.” He finishes, a steeled hardness lingering in his tone.

Now your hand squeezes his.

His eyes, gleaming tiger’s eyes gemstones, flicker up to you and you smile softly.

Javi’s hand feels so lovely. It's rough, a bit callous but cozy. Just like him.

“Hey!” Your best friend suddenly cheers. “Let’s dance!”

She interrupts the moment but you can’t blame her. A hesitant scrunched up reaction tugs at your face though.

“It’s a slow dance.” You waver.

“That’s the best kind! Come on!” She urges and you spot her hand already intertwining with the guy’s.

“You go,” you urge with a beaming grin. “I wanna finish my drink.”

“Aw, come on now bandita,” now Javi slides off his seat.

Standing up straight, he extends his hand out to you.

“You gotta at least get one dance in.” He smirks.

It’s just one dance and you don’t know if you’ll ever get another chance to dance with him. That thought alone outweighs the hesitation. Placing your hand in his, Javier leads you out to the dance floor.

Javi maintains a polite distance from you. Yet the faintest scent of his cologne floats off him, a siren’s song pure of temptation. His hand keeps yours in its protective hold while he gently guides you to the beat of the music.

Being this close to him clouds your focus in a tantalizing haze begging you to get lost in. But you can’t. You can’t even stare into his eyes. So your focus flickers out to the rest of the bar.

David and your best friend dance close, already getting cozy with each other. Then your eyes move to the door.

The bar’s bouncer sternly starts throwing the three girls out and the one you recognize stares at you with disgusted hatred.

You snort.

“What?” Javi mutters, his voice silky against the low music.

You nudge your head towards the bar’s entrance and Javi follows your gaze.

“Oh hey.” He comments, noticing the scene.

“Good riddance. Poor girl must be pissed seeing you dance with someone me though.” You mutter a bit gleeful at the thought.

“Wait, what?” Javi sounds insulted.

“Uh yeah,” you reply, confused. “I mean, it’s kinda funny. You’re Mr. hometown hero here with the town’s nobody.”

“No.” Javier snaps fast. “Anyone who says or believes that’s a pinché cabrón.”

They’re a fucking asshole and the way he speaks with a conviction refuses to allow any doubt to refute him.

“And besides…I’m not a hero.” That’s when Javi’s voice drops, transforming into a whisper tangled among the slow country ballad playing.

“I’m not that golden bullshit guy everyone thinks I am.” His voice contains a stinging rawness you recognize.

Now you’re the one snapping back at him.

“Yeah you are. You’re good, Javi.” You begin firm.

“You’re noble and kind. Brave.” The words flow from your heart and you don’t even stop them. “You’ve worked hard to help people. I’m sure there’s shit you regret and you might not think you’re good because of it, but you are.”

He stays silent. Only the tune of the slow jam settles between you and him. You’re worried you’ve maybe said something to upset him.

Then Javier exhales your name and it has never sounded so tender.

Your throat tightens and when you finally look at him, you’re greeted by a galaxy.

The lights of the bar dance in his dark road eyes that stare directly at you as if the rest of the bar has melted away. Javi’s hand gingerly against your back now slides down gently. In that same motion, he slowly begins drawing you to him.

You don’t resist and catch his eyes flickering to your lips.

A sudden clamoring collision erupts and startled, you clutch onto Javi.

The cause of the commotion is a man who tripped into some chairs. He effortlessly laughs it off. The group he’s with helps him up and you’re thankful it’s not a bar fight.

You sigh relaxed.

That’s when you notice Javier shifted to draw you closer to him. In an almost protective hold, he has you now close against his broad chest. His cologne smells divine, makes your mouth water.

Like a bolt of electricity striking you, you’re galvanized and scramble immediately out of his hold.

“Wait, bandita, what’s wrong? You okay?” He’s so concerned and you dare not look at him.

“Just need some air.” You reply moving away from Javi towards the door leading to the small patio outside.

Your best friend swiftly rushes to you.

“Hey, you okay?!”

You rapidly reassure her that you’re fine and just need air. You even joke about not being able to handle your drinks anymore.

“That fucker didn’t try anything, right?” She asks low and deadly.

You shake your head and squeeze her hand. It’s enough for her to let you leave. Your body operates on autopilot until you stumble into the night air.

It feels like you’re resurfacing. You move to lean against the railing and simply gather yourself.

You feel possessed again needing to kiss him.

And it’s not just that. You want all of him all the time now and it’s infesting you. You’re barely keeping your head above water or maybe you’re this far gone under the waves.

For a moment you think it might be drizzling again. Until you blink and realize the water against your eyes are tears threatening to spill.

You’re so afraid of how badly you want Javier, and how badly it might shatter right before your eyes.

Someone says your name cautiously.

Embarrassed, you turn towards the door.

Javi stands a few steps away from you. His handsome face crumbles instantly seeing you. Quickly he rushes to your side, as if on instinct wanting to help, until he stops.

“Bandita, are you okay!? Fuck… did I do this?” He stammers out worried.

“Did I overstep?” His voice is wrecked. He’s so apologetic already.

You shake your head trying to pathetically dab away the tears. Unable to look at Javier, your attention stays on the dark stretch of parking lot.

“I promise it’s not you. It’s me.” Maybe it will always just be you.

“Querida…”

Darling…he’s never called you that.

“Whatever it is, please let me help.” His voice pleads unbearably tender and you want to cry even more.

He really is so good, too good.

“I just…I just can’t take it...” you begin with a watery cough.

You finally look at him. The furrowed brows, his worried soaked eyes, concern paints him so young. You’re reminded of the young man you saw walking out of a bank all those years ago and how a piece of him stands before you now.

“I like you so much Javi.” Through the heartache, you finally admit it out loud. “Maybe even more than I wanna admit and I don't know if I can’t keep fighting it.”

His face scrunches up and his eyes rapidly scan over you.

“Fight it?” He mutters out. “Why fight it?”

Now you stare at him a bit confused. You have nothing to lose now. So you hold your heart out to him. You reveal it all…the fears and worries sprouting in your heart like uncomfortably cacti about how he deserves someone just as refined and established as him, that he'll eventually get bored of someone like you.

All your words come out hollow, especially thinking about how he can have anyone he wants.

Javier, suddenly in the middle of your ramble, interrupts, upset, snapping your name fiercely that any other words you want to say vanish.

“You’re the only one in this town who actually understands, who maybe even really fucking sees me.” He growls.

Your heart even jumps hearing how determined and raised his voice got.

“You…” Javi now chokes out and suddenly runs a hand over his face. Then his hands go to his hips. His eyes fall to the floor as if he’s taking a moment to gather himself.

“Fuck… you don’t even know what you do to me, how much you fucking mean to me.” Javier breathes and the words get caught in your ribs.

“Whenever you’re not around I can’t stand it. I just wanna be with you….all the damn time.” He coughs out as if he can’t even believe his words.

Those earth pool eyes of his flicker to you.

Under the watch of the clouded Texas deep night sky, it’s just you and him.

You don't know who moves first. Instead it feels like two magnets finally flinging together so fast the collision knocks you awake.

Because in a blink Javi’s hand holds face while his other yanks at your hips. Then he kisses you.

It’s all encompassing.

Immediately your hands scramble to claw at him, begging to get him as close as possible.

His mustache scrapes beautifully against your lips. You taste the beer lingering on his tongue and he’s divine. The wall of the bar suddenly hits your back.

Now you’re flush against him, fully pinned under all of Javier, and you moan. His tongue with hungered finesse licks into your mouth. One hand stays firmly holding your face while his other runs across your body trying to map you out.

His hips rut against yours and you go dizzy with aching raw need.

“Mi pretty bebita, so good to me.” He whispers out thick and heavy. You whine wanting him more, wanting him inside you every way possible. Everything feels molten.

Javi playfully bites your bottom lip and your knees almost buckle. Your mind simply chants for him.

A clash of teeth, a burning heat devours you while you chase every taste of Javier that he gives. It’s an unleashing of something raw and aching, as if finally you can breathe against him while something inside you whispers yes, yes you and I are here and you don’t want to ever leave.

A sudden droplet plops onto your head. You ignore it especially when your tongue swipes against Javi’s and he groans out the most heavenly noise.

A few more large obvious water drops come.

You and Javi freeze, halting mid make out like a paused VHS tape.

Then the rain arrives.

“Shit!” Javi coughs out immediately pulling away. He quickly shrugs off his blazer and drapes it over you, a makeshift umbrella.

Filled by the most buoyant bliss, you laugh.

Javier snorts, shaking his head but he must sense it too, all of it amongst the rain.

And it’s beautiful.

-

“I’m surprised you don’t wear this as much.” Javier comments as he picks up your Stetson cowboy hat.

He’s shirtless, only wearing his jeans. You’re treated to his bare broad shoulders and wonderfully sweet ass in his jeans. It’s an utterly devastating combo.

Sitting on your bed waiting to settle in for the night with him, you shrug.

You didn’t expect him to be so curious and constantly snooping around anytime he’s in your bedroom. Then again, you still can’t believe he’s even in your bedroom.

Sneaking away that the first weekend after the bar didn’t last long though.

Your grandma caught him a few Sunday mornings later trying to sneak out and she ran to you screaming excitedly when she could start planning the wedding. You still haven’t recovered from that.

Even with the blessings from both sides, including Chucho and your gramps, you still wanted to just enjoy being with Javi in these intimate carved out spaces.

His presence already is crystallizing here. His wallet and packs of nicotine gum clutter the night stand. His extra pair of sunglasses sit beside yours on the dresser. His faded worn Texas A&M University t-shirt is tossed by the bed and his boots are by the door. You treasure it all.

Javi, now standing in front of you, places the cowboy hat on top of your head.

The familiar presence of wearing it is like greeting an old friend. You bashfully grin at your handsome rancher. Javier’s eyes gloss over you, taking in the sight. His hand moves to tenderly hold your face.

“You look good, like a true damn cowgirl.” He mutters and your heart flutters against its cage.

“Know you can ride like one now too,” his voice dips with a magnetic undertone as his words hold the heavily sexual double meaning.

You playfully smack his shoulder and he smirks.

“I’m still surprised you don’t call me cowgirl instead of bandita.” You note gently.

“Do you mind that I call you that?” One of his eyebrows lifts up curiously.

No, you didn’t mind at all. You were just curious and you even tell him that.

Javi snorts and his thumb now strokes your cheek.

“The way Pop used to talk about you and how you’d race made you sound like some wild bandit trying to outrun outlaws or something.”

You snort now and your fondness for Chucho Peña triples.

“And then,” Javier continues. “When I met you, I knew I was fucked.”

Now your face scrunches up confused and you ask why. A small charming grin tugs his lips.

“Cause the minute I saw you glaring at me in the barn you stole every fucking inch of me.”

Javi’s thumb now moves to run over your lip and desire bubbles in you. You kiss his thumb, delicate and reverent.

“My pretty little bandit.” His voice is low, a fond rumble in his chest that you want to drown in as much as you can.

You think of all the awards you’ve won, the tournaments you’ve faced. Yet they all seem to fall so short to those words, to this man you so endlessly adore.

In your cowboy hat, you yank Javi close and kiss him. Quickly you and him both tumble into your bed sheets, melting against each other in pure bliss.

In the afterglow, you snatch up the cowboy hat again and now place it on Javi’s head. Your gruff rancher's face twists into a grumpy frown and you grin giddy.

“You look good, a classic Texas man.” You compliment him, almost mirroring the words he told you.

His face scrunches up more.

“Always thought I looked stupid wearing these.” He huffs taking off the Stetson.

“Everybody looks good in a cowboy hat.” You reply truthfully and place the hat back on him.

“Especially you.” You add letting your hand slide across his bare chest. The sight of him in the cowboy hat, your cowboy hat, flickers to life the simmering heat from earlier. He’s already so beautiful and now a cowboy hat on, shirtless, with the dimming post sex glow radiating from him, he’s personified sin.

“Cowboy hat doing it for ya, huh?” Javi’s little cocky smirk has you glaring playfully at him.

“Shut up.” You huff but then swiftly kiss him. Soon enough you become one again with the man taking root in your heart.

Early the next morning, when he thinks you’re asleep, Javier’s fingertips trace over your face with butterfly wing delicateness.

“So fuckin’ crazy about you, baby.” He whispers to your unknowing sleeping form. You feel your heart blossom, a morning bloom wanting to keep him tangled in your soul for as long as he’ll stay.

You think again of two lonely birds on the wire, maybe not so lonely anymore.

With a soft kiss goodbye against your forehead Javi heads out and you soak molten in his words.

You end up not seeing him for a few days. Over the phone he explains, annoyed, of having to run around trying to find a specific fence wire and how it’s kept him away.

Even with how much you miss him, it does allow you space.

Earlier this month, you decided on a new training schedule. Each week would alternate between practice at the Peña’s ranch and yours.

Currently practice is at your family’s ranch.

“Next time you talk to that boyfriend of yours, tell him to get tacos from that place he got us lunch from last time.” Your sister yells as she finishes up a few drills around the ring.

You roll your eyes. “He isn’t a food delivery service.”

She simply shrugs.

The day is winding down. Early evening approaches and the Texas sun starts to bathe everything in a golden glaze straight out of a George Strait song.

“You know…I’m happy for you.” As you and her start putting everything away for the day, your sister casually drops that line.

“About what?” You smirk.

“You and Javi.” She clarifies. Her face is messy with sweat but she beams bright. “You deserve someone like him.”

Your sister, always so kind, maybe too kind for a world this harsh sometimes.

“What? Someone who always manages to steal the last biscuit or flirts with grandma more and more everyday?” You tease and your little sister snickers.

“Well yeah. But what I mean is…you deserve someone who sees how great you are.”

Her words crash into you with a tidal wave of emotions. Her attention rests with her horse, getting in a few final brushes before she turns in for the day.

“I know you… think you’re some sort of failure or that you’re not good. But you are. You’re actually the fucking best.” She says so simply. “And I’m happy Javi sees it too.”

Tears clog your eyes and dry out your throat.

“You sound like a bad hallmark card.” You laugh watery but the gratitude flows out.

Your sister glares then throws the grooming brush at you. You laugh harder when she misses and once she’s out of the stable you playfully shove her.

“You heading back?” She notices your slow pace that hangs back.

You reassure her you’ll be home in a minute and just need a few minutes to yourself. With an understanding nod she walks back to the house.

Now alone you head to the very last stable and head to your ace. You miss your old companion and seeing this sweet creature nudge his muzzle against your hand conjures a sad nostalgic tug in your heart.

Grabbing the saddle, and untangling the reign, you head out to the ring.

You’ve been talking about your old rodeo days with Javi a lot recently. You ask him about Columbia as well. In the sacred soft space of pillow talk. you and him gently unravel more memories, more secrets to each other. It’s made you nostalgic, even a bit wistful.

Plus, you haven’t done this in a while. You frequently rode at a leisurely place along the trails by the river from time to time. But getting into the ring is still so sacred.

With your horse all set, you hoist yourself up and onto the saddle.

Just a few laps is all you do. You focus on the sound of the dirt under the hooves, the light breeze on your face, the feel of riding again.

Then, after gaining more confidence, you speed up.

It’s not even close to the speeds you used to hit, but it’s quick. You even make a lap around the ring going this speed.

One rotation, one good lap and you’re soaring.

It’s nothing. It’s not even an attempt to get back into the rhythm of racing. But it’s a ride and home in its own way.

You slow down, let the horse trot out of his groove to calm down. The entire time, your chest feels so light.

Your eyes glance out and then your heart drops.

Javi, with his flat out jaw dropped, stares at you as if you’ve spouted wings. You didn’t even hear him approach.

He breathes out your name.

Scrambling, a bit embarrassed, you quickly dismount, and after guiding the horse to the side you rush towards him.

You’re about to apologize for not noticing him when Javier ends up speaking first.

“You’re incredible.” He exhales in awe and it knocks the wind from you.

He must see whatever emotion colors your face because he repeats himself again firmer.

“You’re amazing, bandita.”

You weakly laugh thanking him.

“Does that mean-”

“Nah,” you gently cut him off and explain how you just enjoy a ride like that from time to time.

“It’s like just taking a casual drive type thing.” You shrug.

Suddenly Javi’s hand moves to rest on your arm leaning against the fence. He rubs so soft and comfortingly.

“Thank you,” he says gently. “For letting me know you.”

You want him to know every inch of you. The same way you want to know Javier in every way that you can. You want to carve out a home in your heart for him.

The hand that was on your arm moves to your cheek tilting your face towards his. He wears his classic aviator sunglasses you’ve grown fond of stealing from him.

He’s so gorgeous. It’s like the Texas sun was made to bask Javi in its glow. He’s a modern Helios, beautifully crafted with his deep earthy eyes and golden face.

“Proud of you, mi bandita.” He mutters with words soaked in adoration.

You swallow hard and let the truth sink into you.

“Thank you Javi… I’m proud of you too.” You earnestly tell him.

He snorts bashfully and you think you might be doomed to think about this man forever now, but it’s alright.

There’s something foreign in your chest growing so bright you feel as if you’ve swallowed a sun and maybe you have. Because Javier is bright, so unexpectedly warm.

A man crafted right out of the Texas golden magic hour.

And as Javi leans forward to kiss you so tenderly, you step forward into the sun, into his kaleidoscopic glow and it’s beautiful.

[lavendertales]

SEÑORITA series**

pairing: Javier Peña x Murphy!f!reader

summary: your estranged brother's move to New York takes an unexpected turn when you meet his best friend, Javier. While the latter claims loudly that you are not his type, you clash together at every turn and before you know it, the tension that slowly builds will be on the verge of exploding.

SERIES WARNINGS: reluctant friends to lovers, lots of playful banter, mutual pining, slow burn, secret relationship, filthy smut.

AGELESS/EMPTY BLOGS & MINORS WILL BE BLOCKED!

moodboard by me

AO3 | spotify playlist

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4**

Chapter 5

Chapter 6**

Chapter 7**

Chapter 8**

Chapter 9**

Chapter 10

[missgurrl]

Fic Recommendations

These are some of the fics that I've read that I have been left thinking about months after!

Please check these fics for trigger warnings and 18+ content at your discretion!

Joel Miller Wasteland, Baby! by "LittleR13" Plum by @thyme-in-a-bubble Letters and Sketches by "kay_erin" Never Let Me Down by "elmapache" The Wolf and the Moon by @misspearly1 Finders Keepers by @xokiwistarship Blue Jeans n Texas Dreams by @tightjeansjavi Cruel Summer by @proxima-writes

Din Djarin A Fresh Start by @theidiotwhowritesthings Ours by "tangerinefilm" Of Love and Time by @pentechics *Naboo Nuptial which is my own work

Frankie "Catfish" Morales No More by @albertasunrise Infernal Hearts by "honeymandos" In a Week by "notanotherquarantinefanfic" Near the Waters by "paisley_print" Green Mountain State by "pedro_djarin"

Javier Pena The Crush by @the-ginger-hedge-witch Not a Piece of Art by "notanotherquarantinefanfic" Maybe Today, Maybe Forever by @freedomatsea Learning to Live by @wheresarizona The Meeting Place by @absurdthirst, @wardenparker Just Dumb Enough to Try by "glitter_diety" You're my Best Friend by @autumnleaves1991-blog *Hoofprints which is my own work

*I couldn't find everyone's blogs, please let me know if I didn't tag you! And feel free to send your recs my way to add to the list.*

[loliwrites]

✖︎ FOUNTAIN OF SORROW ✖︎

❖ SERIES MASTERLIST ❖

When you see through love's illusions, there lies the danger. And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool.

○ SUMMARY: After having been transferred out of Colombia for his safety, Javier Peña's back in his hometown. When an act of chance (thanks to an irresponsible ex) brings him into your life, you find yourself developing something for the one time federal agent playboy of Colombia. But who knew Pablo Escobar would fuck up your life, too?

○ SERIES WARNINGS/TAGS: set between s2 & s3, early/mid ‘90s, single mother [reader has a young daughter][child won’t play a massive role], angst, some domestic fluff, SMUT [specific warnings per part], terrible exes, female reader, no physical description, protective!javi, no use of y/n

○ PLAYLIST

○ PART INDEX:

⇢ AUGUST - Nice Girls Don't Stay for Breakfast With these words I professed, I have just one small request: Pass the jam. ⇢ SEPTEMBER - Beast of Burden All I want is for you to make love to me. ⇢ OCTOBER - I'll Be The Moon I don't wanna be a secret but this is something I can't lose. ⇢ NOVEMBER - Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now And if this world runs out of lovers, we'll still have each other. ⇢ DECEMBER - Let Me Down Easy I'm right on the edge of giving in to you. Baby, it's a long way down. ⇢ JANUARY - Lonesome Town Goin' down to Lonesome Town where the broken hearts stay.