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mikavlcs · 2 years

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Shade Astray

Pairing: Ghostface!Tara Carpenter x fem!reader

Summary: Never in her life had Tara met anyone that made her feel like you did. She would make you hers, no matter what it took.

Warnings: graphic violence(!!!), murder, mentions of drugs and suicide, tara’s like genuinely terrifying here (tarafying? sorry), relatively bad pacing, overuse of the word anger and its various synonyms

Word count: 6.1k (sorry)

Notes: ...sorry about this, i just needed to get it out of my system. not proofread bc i was tired of looking at this story lol, but i’ll be back to my regularly scheduled wednesday stories in a few days<3

Masterlist | Part 2 | Part 3

For as long as Tara could remember, she had always struggled with her anger.

It was an issue during her early days. She of course didn’t remember, but her father would always humorously recall how she would scream absolute bloody murder as a baby if she wasn’t fed or if they took her toys from her.

Her patience did grow over time, but her possessiveness only ever got worse.

She treasured the things that she designated as “hers”, always treated them with the utmost care and she hated when others tried to take them from her.

Her family learned very quickly to not touch her stuff without asking. Only a few incidents were needed for them to understand how to respect her things.

Her older sister, Sam, seemed to understand better than her parents, but they learned, nonetheless.

And when she started going to school, it was the same.

Only once did someone make the mistake of taking something of hers. It was first grade. They were out for recess and one of her classmates, Alex, wanted to play with the stuffed animal she brought for show and tell. She said no, but he didn’t listen and snatched it right out of Tara’s hands.

In retaliation, she snapped the action figure he brought clean in half and threw the halves across different ends of the playground.

Alex wailed; she just snatched her plushie back and went back to her spot on top of the slide.

Her teacher was worried by the display, but her parents wrote it off, saying she would grow out of it. If only she were so lucky.

Over the years, her anger ebbed and flowed and changed as she did, but it never left.

Hundreds of pencils and toys suffered at the hands of her rage, but never another person. That simply felt like a line Tara couldn’t cross.

And she did not cross that line.

Not when her father suddenly left. Not when Sam abandoned her for no reason. Not when her mother started drinking and leaving the house for days at a time.

She stayed firmly on the “right” side of the line, but the anger still persisted, strengthening with each person she watched walk out the door and never return.

It was almost funny how the emotion that haunted Tara was more present in her life than her actual family.

At some point, it became a comfort of sorts. Even on Tara’s worst days, days when she couldn’t feel much of anything, she could still feel that simmering anger within her. It grounded her in a way she knew it shouldn’t.

Years began to go by and neither her father nor Sam came back. Her mother’s alcoholism waxed and waned. Eventually, she began to go to rehab, but Tara didn’t really notice anymore. Even when she was sober, she wasn’t really present anyways.

What she did know was that through everything, her anger never faltered. It simply persisted, festering in silence, and at some point, Tara welcomed it.

As she entered middle school, Tara found herself migrating into a group of friends. The group was on the smaller side, consisting of five other members besides Tara herself.

There was Amber, a rebellious self-described “wild card” who loved parties. Wes, a shy, soft-spoken nerd that crushed on every girl he saw. Mindy, a slightly obnoxious film buff that would talk your ears off about her favorite franchises. Chad, a dumb jock with a heart of (mostly) gold. And Liv, a pretty girl with a startling lack of individual personality.

Tara adopted the role of the good, responsible girl. The one that reminded everyone about homework and urged them to study for tests. It was an easy enough persona to maintain.

They weren’t perfect, but they were more tolerable than the rest of Woodsboro and they were fiercely loyal. And weekly group hangouts were much better than just sitting in an empty house.

But these new friends did complicate Tara’s life a bit. When there was no one else around, there was no need for her to try and hide her anger.

Now, she needed to be cautious around others, to make sure the carefully crafted mask she wore around them never slipped. It was hard at first, but she got used to it with time.

The discovery of the Stab franchise changed her.

It was movie night at Amber’s house, the group favorite since her house was huge and her parents were virtually nonexistent. Amber insisted on them binging the Stab movies because she was obsessed and after enough “my house, my rules”, they obliged.

The group watched, Mindy and Wes pointing out every little thing they deemed ridiculous, but Tara was completely engrossed.

She had known about the movies and how they were based on the various real-life Ghostface killings across Woodsboro, but actually sitting down and watching them was riveting.

The movies themselves were fine, all overplayed tropes and cheesy one-liners, but the kills were another thing entirely.

Something about the brutality of them excited her, a mixture of anger and excitement creating a dangerous high that she was already addicted to.

Tara was immediately obsessed.

Immediately when she got home, she watched them all again. Within weeks, she had read every book and article she could find about the murders, absorbing it all like a sponge. She even joined the stupid Stab subreddits.

Her dreams became riddled with blood and gore and her behind that iconic mask. And from her dreams, it permeated her thoughts during the day. She daydreamed about it during class and when something inevitably angered her, it was the first thing she thought of.

The Line, as she had come to call it, could not be crossed in real life, but there were no boundaries she couldn’t cross in her mind.

If someone stirred that anger within her, she simply imagined herself donning the Ghostface mask and carving out their insides with one of her kitchen knives.

For a few years, that was sufficient, just thinking about the awful things she would do was enough to satiate the darkness within her.

Then you arrived.

You moved to Woodsboro a few weeks before the start of junior year. Tara heard about the new town residents, nothing stays secret for long in a small town, but she didn’t actually see you until the first day of school.

She and her friends were sitting at their usual table outside the school. Mindy and Amber were debating about some horror movie they saw, and Tara had checked out about five minutes ago when something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention.

A car pulled up to the school, grey and sleek and entirely unfamiliar to her. Her interest piqued, she watched on as two figures in the front seats talked. The passenger seat opened, and out of it came someone she’d never seen before.

You.

All it took was one look and her world stopped. When it started again, it no longer revolved around the sun, but you.

You waved goodbye to whom she assumed to be your father and scanned your surroundings, hesitance apparent in your mannerisms. She intently watched you nervously thumb the strap of your bookbag, a plan to make you hers already formulating.

It began with something innocuous. Throughout the day, she found that your schedule was similar to hers, and in all the classes you two shared, the seat next to hers just happened to be the only one open.

Tara took the opportunity to introduce herself. You introduced yourself, voice soft and melodious, and already, she wanted to hear it again. She offered to show you around, which you shyly accepted. Before she could say anything else, the bell rang, lapsing the class into silence as the teacher began speaking.

Throughout class, she couldn’t keep her eyes off of you. You were everything she could ever want, and she knew then and there that she would stop at nothing to make you hers.

Within a week, Tara being by your side at school became normal. What was once a mere convenience became routine, and your place in class became rightfully next to her. Somewhat awkward small talk became friendly banter. And Tara finally got you comfortable enough to accept her invitation to sit with her at lunch.

Unfortunately, her friends were also there, but meeting them was an inevitability, and you ended up getting along with them pretty well. A bit too well in some ways.

Wes, of course, took an immediate liking to you. His light blush and stuttered words gave him away instantly, and as much as it annoyed Tara, that wasn’t what worried her.

What worried her was Amber’s behavior toward you. She was always talking to you, always grinning with her arm over your shoulders or a hand on your arm. A look in her eyes that Tara couldn’t—or more accurately, didn’t want to—place.

So Tara took a different approach. She started taking pens and pencils so you would ask to borrow hers, and she happily obliged. Then your class notes started going missing, textbooks disappearing between classes, but Tara always let you use hers.

She began inviting you over to her place under the guise of studying, but inevitably you ended up just hanging out. With some gentle coaxing, she got you to open up a bit.

You ranted about anything and everything, she listened, and you thanked her afterward.

She kept doing that until it became a habit. Until you began seeking out Tara to talk about something that was bothering you, which made her happy.

Tara slowly positioned herself to be the person you could rely on most, the one you could go to about anything.

And for a fleeting moment of time, that was enough—to know that you trusted her more than anyone else in the entirety of Woodsboro.

But, of course, it didn’t last. (It never did.)

You had an odd effect on Tara. You were the first person she had ever met that could calm her deep-seated rage. Any fury she felt at an incompetent classmate was washed away by the mere touch of your hand to hers.

But you also exponentially worsened it. Because even if she hadn’t made an official claim on you yet, you were hers. And she began to notice just how many people had their eyes on you.

The boys she caught leering at you in the halls, the jocks she heard having vulgar conversations about you—hell, even the occasional person that asked you for a pen in class. They all awoke an unprecedented amount of ire within her.

Every time Tara saw someone staring at you during lunch, she wanted nothing more than hit them until the skin on all of her knuckles was split and bleeding. Whenever she heard anyone talking about you, she wanted to reach into their throat and tear their vocal cords out.

She never did, she never once laid her hands on any of those people. But she wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to.

Tara quickly found herself inching closer and closer to The Line, using all of her remaining control to stop from crossing it.

All of her remaining self-control and morality went out the window when someone finally asked you out.

Tara was the first person you told. And she didn’t know what angered her more—the fact that someone had the gall to try and take what was hers or the fact that the person that asked you out was Amber.

Boiling hot anger bloomed in her chest and spread through her veins.

Tara’s relationship with Amber Freeman was complicated.

In some ways, Amber was Tara’s closest friend. The whole group shared a love for horror films, it was what initially brought them together, but Amber was the only one whose love for the Stab movies rivaled hers. She had even introduced Tara to the franchise. But that wasn’t what made Tara’s relationship with her so different from the others.

Her bond with Amber was special because Amber was the only person Tara had ever met that was like her.

She saw it most in the way Amber looked when she watched the murders in the films. Sure, Amber always loved the gory kills in slasher movies, but something about the Ghostface kills made her more intense. And it only took one glance for Tara to know why.

The acute passion and almost primitive desire she saw reflected in Amber’s eyes when Ghostface slaughtered someone was something she was entirely familiar with.

In that moment, Tara knew that Amber was capable of the same terrible things that she was. And she knew Amber knew it as well.

They never talked about it, just let it linger in the air between them, open and free. Their special connection brought Tara closer to her than any of the others.

But that also made Amber Tara’s biggest threat. The horrifying potential within her made her unpredictable, and while that had yet to actively oppose Tara’s own wants, it was beginning to become a nuisance now.

Because she had seen the way Amber looked at you, knew what that desire in her eyes meant. She was taken with you the same way Tara was.

And she couldn’t accept that.

She wasn’t able to sleep that night. Her anger was so potent that it felt like it had swallowed her whole. Her fists shook violently, a scream she had been holding back for hours bubbled up again and Tara could only curl into herself and swallow it back down.

It was too hot, sweat coated her skin and soaked her clothes. Her fury was burning her alive from the inside out and she ached for something to take it out on, needed anything—even if it was painful to drown the fire inside of her.

More than anything, she yearned to get rid of Amber. Permanently.

She knew she shouldn’t, but once she thought of it, she couldn’t stop. It would be so simple, to just sneak into Amber’s house and gut her. Hell, she even had a costume, nearly forgotten in the back of her closet from Halloween a few years prior.

And if she didn’t do this, there was a chance that she would lose you.

With that realization, the dam broke, her moral walls crumbling under the weight of her need for you.

The Line was the last thing on her mind that night and before she knew it, her plan was fully formed.

Exactly one week before she planned to kill Amber, Tara invited her over for a Stab marathon. Likely around the twentieth one they’d had over the years, but this one was different.

Watching these movies never got old for Tara, and they were always made better by another person that shared her love for them.

But even with that, it was still less passionate, less enthusiastic than those other times. A melancholy had settled in the air. There was a new finality to the rolling credits, and Tara would be lying if she said it didn’t get to her.

She wondered if Amber could feel it too.

On the walk home, Tara was somewhat conflicted. But then she reminded herself that Amber was trying to take you away from her and that was enough to have her seeing red.

Without anymore hesitation, she took a step over The Line, crossing into that horrifyingly seductive forbidden territory, and firmly planted her feet there.

You were Tara’s and she wasn’t going to let anyone get away with trying to take you from her, not even a friend.

The kill itself was easy enough to pull off.

The Freemans were almost never home, leaving Amber to roam the house by herself most nights and she was never the best at remembering to lock the windows. She relied mostly on their cameras to alert her of anything, but even those were easy to avoid if you knew where they were.

She slipped in through a window around the back, swift and silent as she made her way through the house, mindful to avoid the inside cameras when she could.

Amber was in the living room, watching some show Tara didn’t recognize. Her phone sat on the couch beside her, and the sight of it nearly made her sigh. She had debated doing the phone call, but she didn’t have the iconic voice changer and thus, was forced to do without it.

She knew that Amber would be turning in for the night soon, so she waited, lingering in the darkness of the attached kitchen for her moment to strike.

That moment came mere minutes later. Amber turned the tv off and stood, stretching for a moment before heading toward the stairs. Tara gripped the hilt of her knife and quietly walked out. Her heartbeat quickened, perfectly matching her footfalls as she came up behind Amber.

One of her last strides had a bit too much weight behind it, causing one of the floorboards to creak. Amber whirled around and only had time to blink before Tara struck.

She buried the knife right between Amber’s ribs then twisted it sharply, finding a sick satisfaction in the way she felt something crack. Her heart raced as she pushed Amber to the ground, settling on top of her as she yanked the knife out and plunged it back into her, slightly lower this time.

Then she did it again and again and again. Tara would admit that she lost herself a bit, the adrenaline pumping throughout her pushing her into almost a frenzied state as she brought the knife down then back up.

Amber, to her credit, didn’t scream. The only sounds that filled the air were the sounds of the knife piercing flesh and Tara’s labored breaths under her mask.

When she finally snapped out of it, all she could see was red. It was everywhere—on her knife, the carpet, the surrounding furniture. Some had even managed to splatter onto the ceiling. It was oddly beautiful.

Knowing her time was limited, she turned her attention back to her victim. Amber remained silent, only the occasional bloody cough escaping her as she stared at Tara above her.

Tara reached into Amber’s pocket and pulled out her phone, holding it briefly in front of her face to unlock it. Once inside, she opened the security app and remotely shut off all of the cameras in the house. She waited for a moment, ensuring they were off before reaching up to pull her mask off.

Amber’s eyes widened slightly when their eyes met but she didn’t look surprised. If it were the other way around, Tara supposed she wouldn’t be either.

In a way, they both knew this would only ever end one of two ways.

They would either wreak havoc on the town of Woodsboro together, or one of them would eliminate the other. And unfortunately, it had to be the latter.

Tara adjusted her grip on the knife handle, careful not to move the weapon as she held her dying friend’s gaze. Neither of them said anything, they just let everything sit in the air around them until, finally, Amber stopped moving altogether.

Once the warmth left Amber’s body, Tara stood and pulled the knife out of her one last time, cleaning the blood off of it with a quick swipe of her hand per tradition.

She stayed there for another minute then left, making sure to lock the window on her way out.

Later that night, as she waited for sleep to take hold of her, she wondered if she regretted what she did, finally crossing that line after all these years of holding herself back. It took only a few moments for her to find that her answer was a firm and resounding no.

She would mourn the loss of a friend but never regret her decision. Tara was going to make you hers, and she was going to make sure that no one stood in her way.

It took three days for the body to be found.

Considering Amber’s parents were probably somewhere in Europe, they took no notice of their daughter’s sudden silence, but the rest of the group did. They had been on edge since the end of the first day and by the third, you wanted to go over and check on Amber.

Tara stopped you immediately, not wanting you to see what waited in that house, and suggested calling the police to perform a wellness check because “what if it’s something serious?”

Amber’s face was plastered all over the local news within hours. Along with the news that her killer was another Ghostface.

For public safety reasons, the security camera footage was released and immediately caused an uproar. The idiots in the Stab subreddits were clamoring, new theories being posted every hour. Tara ignored them.

Her entire focus after Amber’s death was made public was you.

The entire group was upended by Amber’s passing, but you were distraught. Even if you didn’t return her feelings, Amber was still your friend and her death hit you hard.

She took every opportunity to be there for you. She hung out with you after school when you didn’t want to be alone, invited you over on the weekends when you needed a shoulder to cry on.

In your eyes, the two of you were grieving together, and in some ways that was true.

When you cried, she would always hold you and cry with you. Sometimes her tears were real, sometimes they were fake, but her concern for you was always sincere. And the way you held onto her like a lifeline made her sure that what she did was more than worth it.

Aside from your sorrow, everything was going relatively well. The fraudulent mask of sadness she needed to sustain almost everywhere she went was exhausting but necessary.

She knew she would have to grieve with the pack, and she did it masterfully while also paying special attention to you and your mental health.

Her ever-present anger had also been noticeably dull. It was always tempered when you were around, but even when you weren’t present it was still anemic.

It was actually somewhat peaceful, and she expected it to remain like that for a while.

What she didn’t expect was her sister to suddenly return to Woodsboro.

Tara swore she had never been more surprised when she answered the door, expecting it to be the police, and saw instead her sister standing there. She was taller, a bit rougher around the edges, but she was still the Sam that Tara tried to forget about over the years.

She let Sam in more out of curiosity than anything. Tara wanted—no, needed to know why her own sister had to abandon her for years without even attempting to contact her.

And, admittedly, the explanation was worth her time.

Turned out that her sister was actually her half-sister. They had the same mother but different fathers. Sam’s father was Billy Loomis, one of the original Ghostface killers. Sam ran away because she was scared that she would end up like her father, that she would somehow hurt Tara if she stayed.

So she left and ended up getting mixed up in all kinds of bad shit. (She didn’t specify, but the track marks on her arms told Tara everything she needed to know.) But she heard about the rise of another Ghostface and that convinced her to finally return, for good.

Throughout Sam’s explanation, Tara bit her cheek until she bled and gripped her chair until her knuckles were white.

It was all she could do to not laugh in her sister’s face.

The “darkness” inside of her that she was so afraid of amused her because she knew it didn’t exist. She couldn’t see the potential that either she or Amber held in her sister’s eyes, and that made the entire situation laughable.

Tara couldn’t help but wonder how frightened Sam would be if she found out about what she did, how terrified she’d be if she knew about the things that Tara thought about doing.

Part of her was jealous, to come from such a profoundly blood-stained family legacy sounded incredible, but she knew it was for the best that it was Sam and not her. It would only make her a prime suspect.

So she flooded her eyes with tears and feigned understanding, allowing her sister to hug her for the first time in years.

The words “I forgive you” tasted like ash in her mouth, but the act needed to be upheld.

Sam expressed her want to move back into the house, something Tara was immediately against. But as she thought about it more, she found herself allowing it.

For insurance mostly. If there were more victims, Sam would be able to back up Tara’s alibis about being at home. She would also serve as her backup plan in case things went south.

After all, if the police were to ever suspect her, it would be so easy to implicate the ex-addict daughter of Billy Loomis in her place.

The following months were an adjustment period.

Tara having to relearn how to cohabitate in her house with her sister, the group learning to function without Amber, and the town having to deal with the fact that there was another Ghostface on the loose all at once proved to be…a lot. For everyone involved.

Naturally, Tara managed just fine. She dealt with the hurdles that came with her sister’s constant presence as they appeared and found a rhythm to fall into relatively quickly.

Things with her friends were similar. With more practice, her persona got easier to maintain and as the group began to accept and move past Amber’s death, it became effortless.

You had grown much closer to Tara over the past months. It was obvious that her insistence to be there for you when needed had paid off. You naturally gravitated toward each other, spending nearly every moment together at school.

You were also doing much better, smiling and laughing again like you did before. The effervescence you usually exuded was back and Tara couldn’t be happier.

There was just one problem.

Amongst the chaos, Tara found that the calm that settled in after Amber’s death slowly faded, her anger returning to her with a fiery vengeance.

But her rage was never more apparent than when she was with you at school.

Those guys that ogled you in the halls didn’t simply disappear (as much Tara wished they did). If anything, they only got bolder without Amber’s presence. Some of the stares she saw them giving you were downright disturbing.

And that wasn’t even mentioning the vulgar conversations she overheard about you.

Every disgusting word she overheard in class or in passing while she searched for you in the halls made her fingers twitch toward her side, looking for a weapon she didn’t have.

It was like before, but now that she had crossed The Line it was so much worse.

Now she didn’t simply want them to hurt, she wanted them to die by her hand, slowly and painfully. She wanted to watch the life slowly drain out of their eyes, for them to die with the knowledge that you would never be anyone else’s but hers.

Tara could only hold back for so long, especially when it came to you.

She gave in four months after Amber’s death, almost to the day.

Her second victim was Daniel Holmes, a lanky art club snob that had a crush on you. During Calculus, Tara would see him drawing pictures of you in his notebook.

His older brother found him on his bed with 11 stab wounds and no fingers. He would never draw you again.

Her third victim was Rowan Morlow, your tall and endlessly arrogant chemistry partner who took every opportunity to make you uncomfortable. He flirted with you relentlessly, ended up giving you a stupid poem about how you were “his sun” that always managed to light his world up.

Tara burnt him alive. The police could only identify him through his dental records.

Her fourth, and (for now) final victim was Jason Lowry, a linebacker for the school’s football team. Tara hated him. He was a repeat offender, ogling you in the halls, saying disgusting things about you in class, and always trying to get your attention. He was always on her list, but the others distracted her from dealing with him.

She finally snapped when she overheard him talking to his friends about wanting to drug you at a party you planned to go to that week.

That same night, she stabbed him 43 times and then slit his throat with so much force that she nearly decapitated him.

(Later that week, she convinced you to not go to the party and stay with her for a movie night. Just in case.)

After Jason’s murder, she had to take a step back from Ghostface and lay low for a bit. The media coverage was picking up and the sheriff was getting more and more intense about finding the killer. Especially after Jason’s (deservingly) brutal death.

The police were really starting to crack down, patrol cars were on nearly every street and Tara couldn’t afford to take any chances.

So, begrudgingly, she locked her Ghostface costume away and took a break from the killings.

Her hands still itched for the hilt of her knife when she saw someone’s eyes on you, but you made it manageable. And now that she wasn’t planning murders, she had more time to spend with you.

You seemed just as eager to see her, which pleased Tara. Biweekly hangouts became you coming over nearly every day to watch movies and just spend time together.

You admitted how terrified you were about the Ghostface killer running around Woodsboro and she nearly said that “she would never hurt you” before she caught herself.

It was the truth. Tara would kill herself before she laid a hand (or knife) on you. But she couldn’t say that outright.

Instead, she offered to drive you home after school every day.

And that’s where she was now.

Classes for the day had ended only twenty minutes ago, so there were still tons of students there waiting for buses and parents. She sat in the parking lot, blaring music in her car while she watched for you to appear at the entrance.

Two songs later, you finally walked out the doors. She perked up, about to get out the car to wave you down, but stopped when she saw who walked out with you.

Wes.

He was matching your strides, pulling you to a stop before you could look out to find Tara in the lot.

Leaning forward, she watched him step close, much too close for her liking, and ghost a hand over your arm. Every time you went to look away, to look for her, he pulled your attention back to him.

It made her want to tear his insides out, but she held herself back. So far, the killings had been deemed random. Two murders within the same friend group would look suspicious. Not to mention the fact that Wes was the sheriff’s son. If she killed him, there would be a manhunt.

Before her thoughts could go forward, you looked over and saw her. The way your expression brightened almost made her forget about Wes, but he remained there. Even after you started making your way to Tara, Wes stood and watched you go.

Tara’s palms itched.

The passenger seat door opening brought her back to the present. She turned to see you already looking at her with a beautifully bright smile that she couldn’t help but return.

Momentarily forgetting about Wes, she put the car in reverse then paused. “Mine or yours?”

“Yours.”

Tara nodded. It was the same answer you always gave, and she forced herself to swallow the lingering question of why.

She turned the music down and handed you the aux before she sped off toward her house. The drive was spent with Tara listening to you ramble about your day, your music playing softly in the background.

But even the melodic sound of your voice couldn’t distract her from the nagging thought of Wes and his stupid crush.

She lasted a few more hours before she finally cracked.

The two of you were in the living room lounging on the couch in front of the tv. Sam was out, thankfully, so Tara didn’t need to keep you holed up in her room to avoid her.

Some movie Mindy recommended was playing on the tv, but Tara had long since stopped paying attention, instead focusing on the feeling of your head on her shoulder.

But again, Wes and his stupid blonde hair invaded her thoughts. He was so close, looked so hopeful about whatever he was talking about. She couldn’t help herself.

“So, what was Wes talking to you about earlier?” She tried for a casual delivery and given the way you answered without hesitation, she succeeded.

“Oh, he just wanted to know if we could study for the chem test together. I told him I’d have to check my schedule,” you said, and she could hear the smile you inevitably had in your voice.

A growl bubbled up in her throat, but she forced it out as a breathy laugh. “He totally likes you, you know.”

You only hummed in response. Tara didn’t like that. She needed a definitive answer to how you felt. So she took a more direct approach.

“Do you like him?”

This time, you sat up straight, putting a bit of distance between you to her displeasure. She tried to meet your eyes, but you stayed quiet, not quite looking at Tara. She clenched her fist, nails digging into her palms so hard they nearly drew blood.

“Because if you do, you could always go hang out with him. I wouldn’t mind,” she lied, unable to keep a touch of bitterness out of her voice.

She absolutely would mind. If you left her for him, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to stop herself from slitting his throat—sheriff’s son or not.

You looked at her then, eyes wide, “No, I don’t want to leave. I’d rather be here, with you. I feel safe with you.”

Tara’s fists relaxed, pride swelling in her chest at your admission.

“Besides, I like someone else.”

Surprised, Tara froze. Her anger flared again but she tempered it immediately. She knew she shouldn’t ask, that hearing you say anyone’s name but hers would send her on a rampage, but she couldn’t help herself.

“Who?”

You glanced away, lips pursing as you fiddled with your finger. She couldn’t be upset with you for your lack of answer when she saw the subtle shaking of your hands.

“I can’t say,” you eventually said.

Tara’s jaw clenched, but she kept her voice soft. “Why not?”

You brought your eyes up, not making eye contact but close enough, and bit your lip. Tara could barely tear her attention away from it to hear you whisper, “Because it would ruin things.”

“What?” Tara asked, confusion drawing her brows together. What did that mean? What exactly would you ruin?

Again, you stayed quiet, but a deep blush was rising on your cheeks. Your eyes traveled the length of her face as you stuttered something too soft for her to hear.

Finally, you looked up and met Tara’s gaze and she understood.

“It’s me?” she whispered, her disbelief more than apparent in her tone.

A sharp inhale, then you nodded, slow and shy. That was all she needed.

Without another word, Tara surged forward and crashed her lips into yours, kissing you fiercely. You were surprised at first, but you reciprocated with the same urgency, hands rising to her face. At the feeling of your hands

Tara lifted you onto her lap, slowly running her hands from your thighs up to your hips, slipping her fingers beneath the fabric of your shirt to graze your bare skin. A soft yelp escaped you, but you only moved closer, both of you losing yourselves in each other.

You stayed pressed against her until long after the movie ended.

That night you fell asleep in Tara’s arms. She laid awake, barely able to close her eyes with the overwhelming amount of emotion running through her. You had always heightened her emotions, but now that she’d kissed you, claimed you it was different. More intense. A type of euphoria she’d never been privy to.

But the anger still remained, still thrummed at the very thought of someone else touching you now. Unconsciously, her arms tightened around you.

You were finally hers.

And if needed, she would kill every single person in that godforsaken town to make sure it stayed that way.

#this is bad sorry #tara carpenter #tara carpenter x reader #ghostface!tara #scream #scream vi #jenna ortega #idk what tags to use #pls heed the warnings #like it gets kinda concerning #i promise i'm normal

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lokischocolatefountain · 1 year

Text

Separation

Series Masterlist

Fandom: Narcos

Pairing: Javier Peña x Reader

Rating: 18+ (*slaps the roof of this fic* This bad boy can fit so much smut, angst and fluff in it)

Word count: 8.4k words wtf

Summary: The last time Javier Peña saw his wife was almost three weeks ago in Steve Murphy’s apartment. He’d finally done it. He’d fucked up the only good thing in his life, driven her away with his neglect.

A/N: Why is it that whenever I write Javi, there’s angst? What is it about this beautiful pathetic man with big brown eyes (and big strong arms) that makes me want to hurt and comfort him? Also, if any of you want to be tagged the next time I post Javi (or just husband Javi) lmk and I’ll make a tag list.

The last time Javier Peña saw his wife was in Steve Murphy’s apartment, holding a sleeping baby Olivia Murphy on her lap as she consoled an anxious Connie Murphy. That night, he’d finally brought his partner home to his wife and child. Relieved, he went home only to find a note from his wife by his bedside informing him that she would be staying with a friend for a while. No explanations, no phone calls. Just a note.

That was almost three weeks ago.

Her side of the bed stayed untouched. Her bedside table was unusually empty without her novel of the week on it. When he reached out for her in his sleep, his heart craving the familiar comfort of her touch, he found it cold and empty. He’d wake up with a start, unaccustomed to an empty bed even though he’d spent all his bachelor life before her sleeping by himself. It was as though married life had been a cruel fantasy he was awoken from to be forced back into the reality of his lonely existence.

No matter how many times he longed to call her friend’s landline, he couldn’t bring himself to dial the number. She’d been by his side ever since he asked her to move in with him. Undying loyalty, a shoulder to lean on, a body to hold when he awoke from nightmares. She deserved a break from him.

The refrigerator sometimes had boxes of meals for him, his whiskey glass was chilled, her laundry done and dried for him to fold up. Dishes left in the sink for him to wash. He had a wife and she did come by the apartment but never when he was there too. She’d been like a ghost, slipping in and out and probably through walls without his notice.

Their anniversary came and went. Still no sign of her.

It wasn’t their wedding anniversary. It was the anniversary of their first date. That was not something they celebrated like they did their wedding anniversary but her absence made him remember and it fucking stung.

He’d finally done it. He’d fucked up the only good thing in his life, driven her away with his neglect. She gave him everything and asked for nothing. Not even the bare minimum. Her parents had begged her for a proper wedding and he couldn’t even give her that. She married him at the embassy and went home alone in the short white dress she bought herself from a regular store as he went off on some fucking raid that ended up failing anyway. She watched as her friends had weddings and baby showers and children while he kept her stuck in the same place in life.

And she was finally gone. After putting up with everything, she’d slowly disappeared from his life without him even noticing it.

Javi found himself outside her classroom. He’d walked into the English Literature department, opened her drawer and checked her schedule, ignoring the questioning staff with the same practiced authority he had as DEA agent.

For the first time, he took in the force that was Professor Peña in action. He knew she was a fucking genius. But to see her command the classroom’s attention was something else.

On one of their first nights together, he’d put his head on her lap and closed his eyes as she played with her hair and asked her unashamedly to read her book out loud to him. He had a reputation of being an asshole, of sleeping around a lot. There was an image of him being a callus man who hopped from one bed to the next. It couldn’t be further from the truth. He gave bits and pieces of his heart to every woman he slept with, he asked personal questions, kissed foreheads and comforted them over their troubles. He lied on the lap of the woman he would one day marry and asked her to read him a bedtime story of how Anna Karenina fell out of love with Alexei and in love with Vronsky. Javier may have been an asshole in others’ eyes, but on her lap, he was the man who kept his parents’ easy intimacy in the back of his head as he looked up at her and wondered if he could have something like that with her.

As she engaged the classroom in a discussion about Frankenstein’s creation, he witnessed everyone around him fall for her just as he did. He watched as she pulled them into discussions and got them involved in passionate debates amongst themselves about the nature of the creature. She was the perfect leader, knowing just how to steer the large group, get the stubborn young people to question their world views and lead them to answers to questions they didn’t even know they had.

She was a wonder.

If this was all he could have of her, he would take it. If she wouldn’t come home to him anymore, he would show up to her classes and sit in the back seat just to hear her voice and see her eyes twinkle with passion.

She didn’t notice him, her attention reserved for the students who asked questions and argued their points passionately. He had to wait until they’d all submitted their papers to her and had a little conversation to continue their discussions. He’d never seen students so reluctant to leave a classroom. He couldn’t blame them; he didn’t want to leave either. Only when most of her class had shuffled out did he have the courage to approach her desk.

He stood there, making no sounds, just fidgeting with his right hand as he tried to find the courage in him to speak to the professor who was counting the number of essays that had been submitted to her.

“Sorry, I have to get home now. Office hours are before class on Monday,” she said, not even looking up at him.

“Sure, if that’s the only way I’ll get to see you.”

She stilled mid-count, letting go of the papers as she looked up at him. She opened and closed her mouth, as though swallowing everything she thought to say.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, finally.

He shrugged and managed a half-smile. “Had to catch you somehow.”

When she said nothing, he continued, “Where do you go when you tell your students you’re going home? Because you don’t come to ours.”

He carried her papers, her handbag and her lunch bag to the jeep. As though he had to confiscate all her belongings to make sure she’d actually come home with him. As though he was afraid she’d slip through his fingers like the sicarios he chased.

Her hand didn’t cross the physical space between them. Her head rested against the glass of the window and her eyes were closed. She didn’t reach over to switch the radio on, didn’t ask him about his day, didn’t reach over to pinch his cheek or steal his aviators.

“Talk to me,” he said, his voice shaking as he realized he didn’t want to hear whatever it was she had to say. He wasn’t prepared for the harsh truths. All he wanted was to take her to bed and kiss her all over and hold her tight so that she would never leave. He wanted to cry like a little boy begging his dad to not leave for work because he would miss him too much during the day. He wanted to overwhelm her with his love, manipulate her mind into taking him back though he couldn’t admit to himself that at some point she apparently stopped wanting to keep him.

His hand was on her knee as he sat at her feet and looked up at her face expectantly for her to speak. It wouldn’t have taken him more than a second to get on his knees. He was no religious man. That stopped the day he buried his Ma. But he would get on his knees again and pray to her to stay, to be his benevolent goddess and forgive his sins for the nth time.

“I don’t know what I did, I really don’t,” his voice cracked as he confessed. “But it must’ve been something terrible for you to stop coming home.” It shamed him to discover that he had become the man he promised himself he would never be. One of those inattentive men who’d grown so comfortable in the kindnesses of their wife that they’re shocked when she decides she has had enough. Neglect killed love. And he had been neglecting her, leaving her alone most days and most nights as he traveled back and forth between Bogotá and Medellin.

She stared at him, her expressions indiscernible. She accepted his hands when he placed them on hers, the small action giving him hopes. “Whatever it is, I’ll fix it,” he begged, holding on tight. He needed her to believe him.

She shook her head and looked down at her lap. “It’s not— you didn’t do anything wrong.”

After relief came surprise. He hadn’t done something wrong this time? The relief was quickly replaced by worry. If he was the cause of her running away from him, he could handle that. He could change himself, fix whatever within was wrong to make her come home again. But it was something else, someone else…

“What is it, then?” He asked, cupping her cheek and gently directing her to look at him instead of her lap or the walls. “Is it work? Are your parents doing well back home?”

“Nothing, it’s nothing.”

He inhaled and rubbed his eyes. “It can’t be nothing. You left me. You packed up your bags and left. I think I deserve an explanation.”

She let out a sigh. “I’ll come back then.”

His hand curled into a fist and his jaw clenched. So that was it? All he had to do was ask? Her easy compliance made him want to throw something at the wall.

He got off the ground where he was knelt at her feet and began pacing across the room.

He expected some resistance when he barged into her workplace uninvited and demanded that she come with him. He expected— no, hoped for a fight for it would give him answers for her sudden disappearance. But she just walked with him to the parking lot, no questions asked. And now she just agreed to move back in. All because he demanded answers.

“Fucking tell me!” He yelled, his hand fidgeting at his side.

“I don’t want to fight,” she said, her voice too calm for the gravity of the situation. Like this didn’t fucking matter.

Oh, you don’t wanna fight? You don’t wanna fucking fight? You fucking ran off and you don’t want to—

“I don’t either, but you’re making it very hard to not do that.”

He heard her take in a deep breath before he heard the unmistakable whispers of sniffling. Great. Fucking amazing. Now, he’d gone and made her cry.

Her sounds of despair were enough for his rage to evaporate off him. He rushed back to her side and pulled her to his chest, forcing comfort upon her in the hope that it would serve as a salve to whatever wounds he’d ripped open. To his relief, she didn’t push him away. But she didn’t pull him close like she always did when he embraced her. Things had changed and he hadn’t even noticed it happening. All he could do now was hope that whatever this rift was between them, he could patch it back together.

—————————

Even in the blistering heat of Bogotá, Javier chose to keep his wife pressed to his chest when he slept. She was disgusted by their sweat combining and their clothes sticking to their bodies, but she indulged his need for closeness. She knew he loved with his body and she accepted his love, in all its sweaty sticky mess.

So he had no choice but to interpret the chasm between them on their marital bed as her rejection of his love.

As soon as he brought her back home, he had to leave for Medellin. Any hopes for setting things right had been crushed when he had to leave from work straight to the other city. He’d called home before he left, informing he would be gone for a long time once again. She didn’t say much, just hemmed and hawed before asking him to be safe out there. No exaggerated smooching sounds to make him laugh, no promises of what would be awaiting him when he came back home to her, no I love you before she said goodbye.

Over ten days after the call, he was back but without any of the feelings of satisfaction he usually had when coming home to her. Instead, there was just dread. She met him at the door as usual and wrapped her arms around him, but she separated without a kiss. The cracks in the foundations of their marriage ran deeper than he’d feared.

“Hey,” he whispered awkwardly when she finally opened her eyes. She stilled, her head jerking up as though surprised he was there.

“Hey,” she replied, her voice groggy from sleep as she shuffled under her blanket.

“I missed you so much, mi amor…” he said carefully, afraid that anything he might say would snap the last thread that held them together. His hand slowly crept into the space between them, an offering to share the littlest bit of marital comforts.

“Missed you too, Javi,” she conceded, not taking his hand but settling for playing with his fingers. He allowed her to lead, giving what little contact she took from him and taking back only as much, afraid to cross any lines.

Her nails were uncharacteristically unkempt. The woman he knew did not tolerate chipped nail polish, wiping all her nails with acetone when the paint began chipping off. Almost all her nails except her pinky had chipped paint now. Her thumbnail was bare.

“May I paint your nails?” He asked, hopeful. She nodded and he left their bed in search of the box in which she kept all her manicure tools and paints.

When they sat together on bed as he took the pink off her nails, they were closer. He handled her hands with care, refusing to scrub too harshly even when the pieces of glitter clung to her as stubbornly as he did. Manicures were something she got done from salons, but she painted her own nails just as often. She said it calmed her.

He then brought the glass file to her nails, reducing them to a shorter oval shape the way she liked them. Any longer and she found it hard to use her typewriter. He made sure to file the edges in the same direction, recalling that she’d told him filing in opposite directions was not good for nail health. He repositioned her hand in his, turning it left and right as he evaluated his work. Satisfied with the shape, he brought his lips to the finger, his eyes remaining on hers the entire time to check for any signs of rejection. He pressed little kisses from her fingertip to her wrist, relishing in the shy smiles she rewarded him with.

He repeated his work with the other nails and then used the little wooden stick she had to push her cuticles back in preparation for the paint. The shower would wash it off soon, but he still slathered some moisturizer on her hands, using it as an excuse to massage her hands. He pushed the excess cream beyond her wrists and up her arms.

He kissed the back of her hand and looked up at her, her eyes clouded with sleep and something else, her plush lips parting as his own traveled up her arm. “You feel so good, baby, so soft,” he praised, making her shudder. When he reached the sleeve of his t-shirt that she liked wearing to bed, he pulled it down, exposing her shoulder. As he neared her neck, she cradled his head in her hand, guiding him by his hair to place kisses where she wanted them. His lips went willingly, loving her up in every spot she took him to. She was all sweat, citrus shampoo and the jasmine of the lotion he’d rubbed on her. He breathed her in, her scent being his choice of drug.

She pulled him back from her neck, gazing at his lips before closing her eyes and leaning forward. He brushed the tip of his nose against hers, making her giggle. He smiled before leaning in again but kissing her chin.

“Javi,” she whined as he kissed along her jaw and the corners of her lips and even her nose, refusing to press his lips to hers.

“Yeah, baby?” He asked, feigning innocence. But she knew him too well to believe the act.

“Jodón.”

“Tell me what you want.” He demanded, craving the feeling of being wanted. He needed to know that she needed him just like he needed her, that she wasn’t just capitulating to his desires, that she desired him.

“Kiss me.”

He found himself grinning as he took her face in his hands and tilted his head, unhurried in how he grazed her lips with his. She took initiative, pressing her lips to his. She consumed him, not like a starving woman but like one ready to savor each second of her meal. He let one hand wander down her back, caressing her through the thin fabric but not daring to slip it under her t-shirt. He needed her to take this at her pace, unaffected by his greed and desperation to have all of her. It was fantastic how just a kiss from her could make him feel his heart beating for her.

He’d kissed other women before her and he enjoyed all those times. But with her, it was different. It wasn’t the first step in fucking, wasn’t a means to an end. When he kissed her, he wasn’t a lonely man trying to imitate a deeper intimacy he’d never had merely to quell his yearning for connection. In her lips, he found not just the thrill of desire, but the safety of home.

The first time he kissed her, every other kiss ceased to exist and she’d become the only one. Everyone he kissed after that first kiss left him unsatisfied. None of them tasted like her, didn’t send jolts of electricity through him, didn’t make his heart leap out of his chest.

She mewled into the kiss as his tongue danced with hers, giving in to her exploration of his mouth as she pulled him closer to herself. Taking her sounds as encouragement, he tangled his hands into her hair. He poured a month’s worth of longing into the kiss, asking with each sigh and moan ‘Can you feel how I yearn for you? Can you not feel how you broke me when you left and put me back together with just this kiss?’

She pulled back first and he found himself panting, taking in the air he didn’t know he was depriving himself of. He pounced back, needing her more than he needed oxygen. He took her lips between his, pushing her head into the headboard as he pulled her into a heated kiss. One hand roamed his shoulder and then his arms, up and down and driving him mad as the other rested over his heart. He brought a hand to hers, trapping hers over his heart. He felt lightheaded as she staved him of air, but he happily drowned in her. He needed her to feel him, feel how his heart beat to her tune, how it missed having her head rest on it as they slept in each other’s arms.

“Please, Javi. Need you…” she broke off to whisper. He placed one last kiss to her lips before he slid down the bed, pulling her to the edge before pulling her shorts off her. He dove in and licked her through her panties, savoring the taste of her wetness on the cotton. Her hand found his hair and tugged gently.

“You have no fucking idea how much I’ve missed having you, querida…” he said, placing a kiss between her legs.

“I miss you so much, Javi…”

“No, you don’t know,” he insisted, angered that she would claim to have missed him after she left him. If you missed me so much, why didn’t you come back? He pressed his thumb on her clit, pressed a bit harder than she liked and she whined.

“I’m sorry!”

“You left. You walked out on me, didn’t tell me shit and I was fucking miserable,” he confessed, passing on the hurt right back to her. She mumbled a few more apologies, but nothing would be enough until he got to take her again.

“Gonna let me show you how much I missed you, baby?” He asked, placing kisses on her belly. “Gonna let me make love to you?”

“Yes, yes, please. Need youuu—” she cried as he pushed the cotton of her panty aside to lick her.

“You need me?” He asked, licking her again. God, how he missed his favorite taste. “Did you miss my cock like I missed this pussy, baby?”

She nodded, but that wasn’t enough for him. He needed to know from her lips, needed her to scream for the entire city to know how she missed his touch. He pushed her legs back together and pulled her panties off before setting it aside. He wrapped his lips around her and sucked on her clit, exacting the sweetest little sounds from her.

“I need to hear you.”

“Missed you, Javi. Missed your cock,” she confessed, tightening around his finger as she did. He wished he had his cock inside her as he made her tell him how much she missed it. He would pull more confessions out of her with a promise of an orgasm and he knew she would say anything he wanted.

“You have ruined me, mi amor. Can’t make myself cum just as good anymore without this pussy. Hate my own fucking hand.” He praised before he lapped and laved at her core, licking her up as he made her wetter and wetter for him.

“I sneaked your panties out of the laundry hamper, took it with me to Medellin like a fucking creep,” he confessed, unsure if her cry of his name was the work of his fingers or the confession of his depravity. “The pink one with the stripes, covered in you from when you touched yourself, when you kept this cunt to yourself and kept me away. I needed to smell it when I wrapped my fist around my cock and imagined I was fucking you.”

She clenched around his finger and that sent a rush through him. “That make you feel good, Cariño? Knowing you’ve turned me into a fucking pervert?”

“Javi, baby please…” she cried as he busied his lips once again with her cunt. He would’ve left her pussy lips for the lips that cried his name so prettily but she kept him down with her hand on his hair. She fucked herself on his fingers, gasping when he added a third one to stretch her out further.

His idle hand traveled up her body, its every nerve ending enjoying having her tremble beneath him once again. He took his time, roaming everywhere, feeling every inch of skin that he would soon trap under him as he fucked her for the first in a long time. This was the longest they’d gone without each other ever since they decided to pursue what they had for real. Even with his job being the way it was, he managed to come to Bogota every now and then to have her.

She wrapped her legs around him, trapping his head with her thighs as she dug the heel of her foot into his back. He growled into her cunt as she thrust up into him, fucking his mouth and his fingers at the same time. She still wanted him in between her legs if nowhere else and if he had to, he would fuck her into staying with him forever.

A few more minutes of licking and sucking and she was pulsating around his fingers, her thighs setting enough pressure on him to make him fear that she might crush him. With a cry of his name, she came for him, coating him in her juices. He drank up all of her, not showing any restraint.

She pulled him up by his hair and he obeyed, kissing her lips to bless her with her deliciousness. He dipped his tongue into her mouth, meeting her tongue as she moaned with her own taste. He placed his hand over her collarbones, smearing her all over the place before he crept up and held her neck as he relished in the vibrations of her moans.

He gasped into the kiss as she wrapped her hand around him through his boxers. He grabbed her wrist and held her in place, keeping her from stroking his cock. It’d been too long since he had her and he wasn’t going to waste this morning by coming in his fucking underwear.

“Let me have you, baby,” he begged, dipping down to her neck to lick up her cum that he had smeared over her. He wasn’t going to let any of her go to waste.

“Yes, fuck!” She reached into his boxers and took him out, painfully hard and already leaking precum. He licked and sucked the skin until it was marred from his attention.

“Wanna be on top, please,” she begged and he rolled them around, acquiescing to her. She sat up on him, her knees planted on either side of him before taking her t-shirt off to reveal her pretty tits. Before he could reach up for her himself, she took command in taking his hand and placing it on her breast.

“Missed this so much, Javi,” she said as she stroked his cock. He kneaded her breast in his hand, enjoying having the ample flesh in his hands.

“Need to be inside you, please,” he breathed, trying as much as he could to clear his thoughts for if he focused on her hand around his cock and how gorgeous she looked on him, he would burst in an instant.

She obliged, adjusting herself over him before living him up with herself. She let him inside her wet heat, just the tip, before pulling back up. He groaned at the loss of contact, biting down on his lip as she repeated the motion, giving him just a bit of her pussy before pulling away once again.

He grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Don’t fucking tease. I haven’t had you in the longest time, darling. I need—ssss” he hissed as she took him in once more.

“I’m not teasing,” she gasped silently as she allowed a little more of him inside her. “So big, Javi. Haven’t stretched me out like this in s-so long,” she praised as she swallowed him bit by bit. “So fucking thick, gonna ruin me.”

“That’s right, baby… You love this cock, don’t you? Can’t go for anyone else ever again. I’ve made you mine,” he said, moving his other hand to her clit, moaning when she rewarded his touch by gripping him tighter.

“Mmmm love your cock,” she moaned as she struggled to take more of him even though he’d gotten her nice and wet with his fingers and mouth. Poor thing needed time to get used to his girth again after having gone such a long time without him.

“You are so beautiful like this… Look so fucking sinful trying so hard to take all of me, sitting on top of me like that and letting me touch your tits,” he praised as he played with her nipples, pinching and tugging and rolling between his fingers to make her tighten around him. She might have been on top, taking the reins, but he still had control. He knew her body like he knew the communas where he chased men, knew every shortcut, memorized every path, knew where to go to corner and capture them. He could elicit every desired response from her by touching her in the right places and saying the right words. She belonged to him, body and soul, and he enjoyed using every inch of her body to remind her to whom she belonged.

He let her set a slow torturous pace as she adjusted to him, groaning as she finally swallowed him to the hilt. It was pure bliss to be surrounded whole by her, to feel all of her wet, velvety heat. He felt her all over, from the tips of his toes to the top of his head and it was everything. She was everything.

It was sweet torment to be exposed to the cold air of the fan only to be swallowed back up by her hot cunt. He needed her so fucking bad, needed her not just for the carnal pleasures that sex brought but the feeling of home when he found himself buried in her— he needed her to devour him whole and keep him right there, inside her, all hers and nothing else. Only the Javier that belonged to her was worth existing. Everything else he’d become in over three decades of life was insignificant.

Inside the walls of their home, on their marital bed, there was no world outside. She brought him the delusions of safety and he luxuriated in it, allowing himself to forget everything that wasn’t her. The world was just her tight cunt, her tits under his hands and the filthy sounds from her lips as she slowly went from a woman in control to a writhing, moaning mess. He met her halfway with his thrusts when she struggled to keep up on top of him. He sat himself up and pulled her to his chest, giving in as she stole his lips. It was hurried and sloppy as they explored familiar territory, still as excited as the first time they kissed each other. Practiced lovers, savoring the familiar comfort of each other’s lips yet excited to find something new each time.

“Don’t ever leave me,” he begged, holding her face in his hand and making her look at him in the hopes that she would see just how much he meant it. “I can’t, without you… I— I c-can’t, mi amor— Please…”

“I w-won’t,” she managed to stutter out as she grew breathless.

“Promise me,” he demanded even though what he wanted to do was beg.

She opened and closed her mouth, unable to form words as he set a relentless pace, taking over as he thrust into her and thumbed her clit.

“Fucking promise me!” He growled, forcing himself into her in hard, merciless thrusts.

“Aaaah! Ja—”

“You’re mine. You’re fucking mine, get it? This isn’t— We aren’t just da-dating. I’m your husband. You can’t just leave like that.” He forced himself deep and inadvertently hit her cervix. She jolted in his arms and let out a pained cry, letting him know his mistake and he pressed a kiss to her cheek in a silent apology.

“Sorr— hnnng! ‘m sorry Jav—”

A tear slipped down her cheek and he kissed it, tasting her. He breathed her name the way a dying man would call for his god in desperation. He prayed her name, each syllable a request of Save me, never leave me, breathe life into this wretched man.

She pulsated around him, collapsing on his chest and relying on him to hold her up as she reached her peak. She was deadweight in his arms and he held her tight as he reamed into her, her back arching and her hair cascading down her back, shaking from his hard thrusts. She took him along with her, erasing his world and making herself his everything. She had dragged him to the peak of the world and now she was pulling him down and he went with her willingly, taking everything she gave him, getting lost in her body. She was like a breath of air after drowning for eternity, she gave him life, gave him meaning even though she’d been the one to rob him of it.

He wiped her tears and kissed her all over, showering her with all the love he had for her. But it wasn’t enough. No matter how much he poured out, he couldn’t show her the depth of his feelings for her. No words compared, no kisses came close to the place she had in his life. No matter how many times he told her he loved her, she would never know just how much.

“Te amo, Javi,” she broke off from their kiss to whisper. He collapsed on the bed and brought her down with him. He pecked her lips once and then twice before setting his gaze on her eyes.

“Si me amas…” he paused to take a breath. “¿por qué me dejaste? ¿Por qué?”

She looked down at her lap and fidgeted with her rings as she spoke, “Y-yo no quiero perderte.”

He shook his head as he said, “No me perderás. Yo soy tuyo.” He took her hand and placed it on his chest over his heart. “Tuyo.”

She scoffed, her hand curling over his chest. “More Escobar’s than mine at this point.”

“What?”

She shook her head and looked away, avoiding his eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to— I shouldn’t complain.”

“No. No, you talk to me. What is this about?”

“We’ll fight if we talk about it. Like Steve and Connie.”

“Do you…? Do you want to leave…? Like Connie did?” He asked, unable to steady his shaking voice. Three weeks with her gone was hell enough. If she wanted to take off permanently, he didn’t know what he would do with himself. Hunting the hijo de puta had become his purpose in life over the past few years. But he now had another important purpose, a woman he’d made promises to. Promises he was insistent on keeping.

She shook her head.

He sighed as he tucked her hair behind her ear, needing to see her without anything in the way. It was fucking frustrating, not knowing what worried her so much that she couldn’t even talk to him about it, that she chose instead to run away from him. But he had to be kind if he wanted her to open up.

He began by caressing her cheek with the back of his hand. Gently, like soothing a wounded child. “Baby… If you don’t tell me what this is about, how am I going to fix it? Hmm?”

“It can’t be fixed,” she said, same as that day.

It took him a moment to know how to answer her.

“When I asked you to marry me, you asked that I give you all of me. Have I not kept that promise?” He asked, knowing that he had so far. No matter how ugly, no matter how broken, he brought home all of himself. To her credit, she accepted him just as he was.

She nodded and said, “you have.”

“Now I’m asking. I want everything, too. Whatever you’re hiding from me that has you worried will make us fight. Is it about my job?”

“I’m sorry,” she said as she nodded, head hung low as tears spilled out.

“No, no, nothing to be sorry about. Just talk to me. What about my job?”

“S-scared.” His chest tightened at the trembling of her voice. Relationships were not something he was comfortable with after he left Lorraine and it was alright for his dangerous new lifestyle as an agent in Colombia. There was no one else he was putting in danger because of his line of work. But then he had to go and fall in love.

It was one of the reasons he proposed to her as soon as he could. Being his wife offered her more legal protection than did being his girlfriend. And knowing that she was it for him, he saw no point in waiting. But she was still afraid for her safety.

He reached out quickly to reassure her.

“I’m here, okay? Our home is safe. Those bastards won’t dare touch you here, won’t dare touch a US federal agent’s wife. I got you,” he whispered into her ear and rubbed her back, hoping to help her relax in his arms. She didn’t. She just tensed.

“‘m not worried about m-myself,” she said softly. “Ever since Steve got kidnapped, I—”

He took in a deep breath and pulled her in closer even though there was no gap between them. What was he supposed to do? Tell her he was safe? Lying wasn’t something he was ready to do in their marriage. Even if he did, she wouldn’t believe him after she had to comfort a panicking Connie. He had the same job as Steve, faced the same dangers. It could be him next. And he might not be lucky enough to come home.

The CNP guys were in much greater danger than he was as an American. Call it gringo privilege. But he couldn’t make promises. He couldn’t promise that a jump from the roof wouldn’t end up terribly. He couldn’t promise that he would never catch a stray bullet. He couldn’t promise that a crazy motherfucker wouldn’t target him for the bragging rights over nabbing a US agent.

Small town sheriff Javier Peña hadn’t thought of all this when he signed up for this job in his mid twenties. There was just an opportunity to run away from a town that hated him— a town he hated more for how it smothered him from all sides as he grew and grew yet it remained small, insignificant. It was his chance to do something great, to be the good guy fighting big bag guys and he took it. He hadn’t been warned that he’d one day be sat holding his sobbing wife, speechless because he couldn’t make the most basic promise— to fucking stay alive.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered, the tremble in her voice tugging at his heartstrings.

“No, no. I’m sorry.” Sorry I can’t give you more. Sorry I made you cry. He pulled her into his arms and sat on the couch, cradling her in his lap more for his comfort than hers.

“I shouldn’t complain. I know I married a man with a dangerous job. I signed up for all this, but… ‘m so scared, Javi. I can’t sleep at night. I wake up from nightmares and I lose you every single time. I get scared when I get a call because what if—” she stopped, breaking down into sobs.

There was nothing he could do to fix this, she was correct. The thing that was causing her all this agony was his whole life.

“Do you want me to quit my job?” He asked, regretting it the minute the question left his lips. What if she said yes? What if that was the only way to fix their marriage? He would quit. There was no question about that. But that would mean that almost a decade of his life’s work would be worth nothing. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself. Resentment would break anything they had left between them.

Please don’t ask that of me.

She shook her head and he had to keep himself from letting out a huge sigh of relief.

“Do you know I have students who— I shouldn’t tell you. I’m not on the field like you and I don’t know all the things you know, but I see everyday how he’s fucking ruined lives. I want you to catch that motherfucker. You’re in this fight and I’m not letting you leave it without crushing his blood empire. I just don’t want us to be collateral damage. I can’t bear losing you whether it is to divorce or a bullet. I can’t—” she brought her hand to her lips, biting on her newly shaped nails.

He swallowed, tugging her hand away from her mouth and giving it a kiss. “I can’t make promises about the latter,” he said softly, unable to look her in the eyes as he said it. He didn’t want to know what he did to her with those words. “You know I can’t. But when I die, whether it’s tomorrow or 40 years from now, I’ll die your husband. I don’t do divorce. You might think it’s not a big deal for me, the guy who left his first fiancé at the altar. But trust me, you’re a catch and there’s no way I’m letting you escape”

She laughed and nuzzled into his neck. He rested his head on hers and pressed a kiss to her hair. “I’m not joking. You should be very scared, baby. As far as I’m concerned, I’m it for you. Won’t let you leave no matter what you do.”

“Yeah?” She laughed, her eyes glinting with tears but also something new. Her lips quirked up in a mischievous smile. “What if I slept with a bunch of guys?”

He raised an eyebrow, reeling the unhinged jealous little man in his heart to join her in whatever this was that made her smile through her tears. “Good for them. Best pussy they’ll ever have. I mean, I will beat them to death for touching you. But you’re still my wife. Not divorcing you.”

“What if I fucked Steve?” She challenged, raising an eyebrow.

He knew what she was doing. She was making it personal, putting a face to the act and making said face a very familiar one. But he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

“Last thing he’ll ever do in his life. I’ll kill him and Connie will help me hide his body.”

“Mhmm? What if…..?” She trailed, looking into the distance as she stroked her invisible beard. “What if I let someone else knock me up?”

“You bitch!”

She gasped and shoved at his chest. “How dare you call me a bitch!?”

“How dare you even think of letting another man do that?”

“I won’t actually do that!” She defended, folding her arms over her chest. “I’m just trying to get a raise out of you.”

“And you did,” he supplied, making her scoff.

“How about…? Okay! What if I fucked Escobar?”

“Shit, I would tell everyone!” He laughed. “My wife? Getting that close to that piece of shit and living to tell the story? Yeah, I’d be on the rooftops with a megaphone. Oh and I’ll kill him. Of course. Goes without saying.”

“Well, you were gonna kill him anyway. What will you do to him for touching your wife?” She asked, twirling his overgrown hair around her finger.

Was this…? Noooo! He was just joking, but she seems to like the idea of him killing men for wanting her.

“Baby, what’s wrong with you?” He asked, laughing. She surprised him every goddamn day.

“I don’t know, you tell me,” she licked her lips and drew shaped on his chest with her index finger. “There should be an explanation for why I signed up for all this.”

“You like this, don’t you?” He asked, lowering the register of his voice the way she liked as he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You want me to possess you, to hurt anyone who would want you that way I have you. You like that I can be a dangerous man.”

She shivered, but quickly stabilised herself, looking very blasé as she spoke, “Huh, that answers my question. I always wondered what kind of idiot would be with Escobar. I guess women just like to fuck a powerful man. And money. She’d gotta be in it for the money.”

“She married him before he got rich, actually. And it’s not just women who are attracted to powerful men,” he added, letting her know just how much he liked when she was in a position of power.

“Men too? You’re gonna tell me you want to fuck Escobar?” She asked, making him laugh. He pinched her bum, making her squeal and attempt to get off him. He pulled her back in immediately, not ready to lose contact.

“When I came to your class, I sat in the back the entire time. I enjoyed seeing you in your element, leading the discussion, getting a big room full of people to listen to you. And your ass in a pencil skirt. If I was your student, I would wank off every day thinking of you” he groaned, his cock twitching inside her at the mental image.

“Oh my god!” She exclaimed before hitting him playfully.

“Whaaat? I feel bad for those fuckers in your class, having to talk about Frankenstein’s monster to impress their hot little literature professor.”

“Don’t sexualise my job!” She looked positively scandalised. Like he’d suggested that she let him fuck her on the streets.

“Uh huh? Now you know how it feels? What was that you asked me for your birthday?” He teased. “On yds, the little interrogation fantasy. You’ve been begging me to tie you up and interrogate you.”

She hid her smile from him, covering her face with her hands, but he pried them off to see her looking so sweetly shy at being reminded of the depraved things she wanted him to do to her. “You don’t have to do it,” she said, shy and quiet and she played with her rings.

“Mmm thank you baby, but I’m gonna make your dreams come true. Just be happy I’m not CIA. Cause CIA has some terrible interrogation methods. They’ll fucking waterboard you.”

“Oh my god! Okay this isn’t fun anymore,” she said, getting off him, but he pulled her right back onto his cock, laughing as he caught her expression.

“Let me go!”

“No, no sorry. I shouldn’t talk about the CIA in bed, they’re such a turn off.”

“You think that’s why I’m trying to escape?? Javi, women don’t like talking about waterboarding with a dick inside them.”

“Okay, okay, I know. Just stay in bed. I have today off and I need to be inside you,” he said, rubbing her back in an attempt to coax her into foregoing her household responsibilities for a lazy day in bed with him.

“I have work to do. Papers to grade and clothes to wash. Oh and some pervert,” she said, poking his chest a few times. “has been stealing my panties so I have to go wash them before he gets to them.”

“Oh please, it was just one pair,” he lied, looking away quickly but it wasn’t enough for him to get away with it.

She squinted her eyes at him and he relented. “Fine. It was three. Pink one with the stripes, blue lace ones and a white cotton panty.”

“Pervert!”

“Or I’m just really in love with my wife. You should see the sweet side of it. You don’t know how other guys act on the field. It’s like as soon as they’re in Medellin, they aren’t married.”

“Uh huh?” She said as she tilted her head, her tone suggesting that she wasn’t convinced by his words. “And I’m supposed to be grateful that you aren’t sleeping around? Pendejo!” She punctuated her curse with a slap to his chest.

“That’s not what I meant!” He defended, taking her slapping hand and giving it a kiss.

“Sure, Cabrón.”

He laughed, amused at how adorable she was when angry. He pulled her down to lie down with him, her head on his chest and his hand in her hair. Mornings like these had become so rare. Even without their period of separation, they didn’t have quality time together. Work always called, always overwhelmed and left him with very little to give as a husband. Being too tired to do anything else, he couldn’t even take her out anywhere for dinner. But that would change tonight.

“I made dinner reservations for us. Are you free tonight?”

He’d booked it a while back, but he didn’t know if she would want to go with him after she left. And he didn’t want to promise her a date night before he knew for sure that he would have the day off from work. She did not take it terribly when he had to calculate on her for work, but something told him it wasn’t good for a marriage to keep breaking promises.

“Hmm, I don’t know. This pendejo said he’ll paint my nails and did a half assed job. I might have to book a nail appointment for the night,” she teased, making him laugh. He’d completely forgotten that their activities were preceded by his request to paint her nails.

“I’ll finish the job now,” he said, getting up, but she pushed him back down and trapped him in a loving hug.

“Later. I just wanna stay like this a little longer. Feels good…”

“I like when you hold me like this, mi amor,” he confessed, his voice softening as he opened himself up to allow himself to bask in the euphoria that holding her to his chest brought him.

“I- it calms me down. I need to hear your heart beating. I wake up from bad dreams sometimes and I can’t fall back asleep if I don’t lie down like this.”

He froze. He had no idea she had nightmares. “You never told me.”

“Didn’t want to worry you.”

He said her name softly, making her look up at him from his chest.

“You have to tell me these things,” he said, moving her hair out of the way so he could have an unobstructed view of her. Her features were soft, her eyes open, vulnerable.

“You have a lot on your plate already… I don’t want to be one of your problems.”

“Jesus,” he swore before sighing. “You’re not- I’ll never think of you as a problem. I understand why you worry. It’s not unwarranted. I would never ask you to hide your feelings for me. I thought we talked about these things. You’re the one who’s always telling me that we should communicate about difficult things. What happened to that?”

“Do you remember when I made you choose? Either date me for real or stop coming over for anything other than sex?”

He hummed in response, encouraging her to continue. They'd been fooling around for around two months back then and one night when he was dressing himself to leave, she forced him to confront how he’d been treating her— he’d been giving her mixed signals, pulling her in and pushing her away. He’d act like her boyfriend one minute but get distant the next and she was understandably annoyed.

“And you said you wanted to date me but you warned me that your job was dangerous and that attachments were a weakness. I didn’t want to be your weakness, I still—”

He shook her head, interrupting her mid-sentence, “I was talking out of my ass, I was just scared. And it’s different now. We’re—”

“Yeah but when I think of you strapping a gun and badge on yourself to go out and get shot at by those malparidos, I want to stop you,” she choked on her words, getting up off his chest and hugging her knees to her chest. “I told you I could handle it. That day and the day you asked me to marry you. But, I can’t. I can’t handle it. Ever since Steve was kidnapped- and I know you said he wasn’t in any real danger, but fuck! It was terrifying to see Connie like that and I couldn’t help but worry and put myself in her place. And I couldn’t stop thinking about every terrible thing that could happen to you and I just wanted to lock you up at home. So I left- because I don’t want to be your weakness. But I can’t be brave, I can’t be strong.”

It broke his heart to know that behind the scenes, behind her easy smiles and her strong shoulders he leaned on everyday, there was so much fear. So much insecurity. There was shame too. Had he been more attentive, he would’ve known without her having to tell him, without her having to run away.

He sat up, pulled her close and placed a kiss on her head. “You are brave and you’ve been so strong, putting up with more of my shit than you need to… Sometimes I think I won’t get through this with my soul intact if it weren’t for you. So never think that you’re my weakness.”

She listened, her eyebrows furrowed and eyes never leaving him. She bit down on her lip, pulling at the skin with her teeth, something she did when anxious. He reached over and thumbed her lip, not wanting to wait until she started bleeding.

“I… I’ve put you in a difficult position, but I would never ask you to hide your fears for my comfort. And you leaving definitely did not make me stronger. Just scared the hell out of me. I thought I’d done something so shit that you’d left for good.”

“Sorry I left… I just—”

“I’m sorry you couldn’t talk to me. Not like that would’ve solved anything,” he scoffed, rubbing his eyes. “Nothing short of stopping that bastard is going to solve this.”

“I know, I know…” she sighed.

“I’ll get him,” he affirmed, taking her hands in his. All the things he’d done since he landed in Colombia, all the things he’d lost because of that man… To think he might lose her too… It was chilling. He’d lost friends, made enemies, became the guy everyone called an asshole for not cutting corners, for not putting up with anything that wasn’t right. He’d lost so much, but she wasn’t going to be one of them. He wouldn’t allow it.

Javier Peña wouldn’t rest until Escobar was history.

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