#I took a time lapse of rendering his face but the file is too big to post

[black-and-yellow]

can't stop drawing the clown (send help)

[everythinggeeky]

Back To You | Javier Peña

Javier Peña x f! reader

Warnings: angsty, a tinge of fluff, alcohol, divorce/separation

Word Count: 1.8k

Request:  Okay but uhhh 🥺👉🏻👈🏻 Javier Peña where he has a kid back in Texas with his ex and he flies in to see them 🥺👉🏻👈🏻 and maybe they uhhhh get back ✨together✨(anon)

A/N: this is it. I’ve plummeted myself into the Javier wormhole. I’d appreciate feedback! Texas Javi is the reason I breathe.

masterlist

You had to keep reminding yourself that this was just a conventional meeting. A meeting to satisfy the requirements of the courts, fulfill the needs of the custody agreement. You rocked your daughter Sofia side to side in your arms, desperately trying to get her to soothe herself back to sleep. Perhaps she sensed your unease; this would’ve been the first time in three years that you’ve seen Javier since he ran off to become DEA and ignore all of his life’s problems that came along with being married to you. 

Something itched in the back of your mind; he had ignored the court’s previous attempts to get him to come home, but for some reason, in the thick of Escobar’s destruction on Columbia, Javier had decided that now was the best time to see his daughter for the first time since her birth.

As you watched the clock tick, your pulse elevated one point. There was less than an hour left until his estimated arrival. God help you if he was on time, or early. You quickly whisked the thought away. Javier Peña was never on time, let alone early. He always found something...or someone to occupy his time. 

There was a moment in both of your lives when that was each other. 

It was a photographic life of domesticity: you had a beautiful ranch on a piece of land that once was owned by Javier’s father, whom he was very close with. Papa would make loving visits to say hi, share a meal, or just to bug Javier about fixing the leaking faucet in the powder room. You would have dinner on the kitchen table by 5 pm, and Javier would drop his keys in the bowl on the credenza next to the front door. 

You had gotten married in the backyard of the ranch. It was a special ceremony; just for the two of you and your closest friends, family, and Javier’s coworkers. The ranch was your happy place; there were so many special memories that were kept there. 

It was the stereotypical American dream, and it felt like bliss….until it all came crashing down around you.

A year after you had gotten married, you found out you were pregnant in the bathroom of the Piggly Wiggly. You had been feeling sick for the last week and when you missed your period, you decided it would be best if you bought a test on your weekly outing for groceries. The anticipation was practically eating you alive, so you bit the bullet and took the test in the grocery store bathroom. You nervously bounced your feet against the faintly sticky floor and flashed your eyes to the test two minutes later.

You watched the two faint lines develop and before you could process it for yourself, your whole life had changed forever.

You brought the test home to Javier that afternoon, passing it over after dinner. 

“This is yours?” he met your eyes.

You nodded, smiling a toothy grin, “you’re gonna be a daddy, Javi.”

“Shit!” he stood, excitedly, a wide smile on his own face, pulling you into a tight embrace.

As happy as Javier was on that day, the fresh excitement dwindled and was replaced by the harsh reality of parenting. 

The months leading up to Sofia’s birth had been the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

Javier would come home from work, drop his keys in the bowl, but the drop became more half-hazard and louder with every passing day. He came to expect a perfectly cleaned house and a hot, well-balanced meal on the table, and when your health slowly deteriorated because of your pregnancy, things had gotten harder for you and it just wasn’t as easy as it was six months ago. Javier was frustrated with the little things, and in your naivety, had contributed it to the stress from work. Those two combined created the perfect scenario for life-altering meltdowns that ultimately ended your marriage.

The screaming fights were ugly, ending in one of you crying and breaking down, as Javier typically took a breather in his Jeep with a loop around the neighborhood. You pushed one another away, the distance eventually caused him to find an apartment in the next town over, file for divorce, and encouraged him to leave for Columbia before the divorce could even be finalized.

Javier had left your life just as easily as he had come into it. 

And suddenly, Javier has weaseled his way into your life once again. 

His invitation had come in a letter, and as unconventional as it was, was endearing. He admitted to his shortcomings, wanting to make up for them and make a consistent appearance in his daughter’s life. Perhaps foolishly, in a lapse of judgment, if you will, you accepted his offer and allowed him to make the visit.

He was due to arrive in just over half an hour, and you were dreading it, but you also couldn’t deny that a part of you had a grim curiosity about what his visit would entail. 

You heard the Jeep putter outside, and silence after Javier parked on the street. You inhaled a deep, cleansing breath, hoping to rid yourself of the anxiety you had been carrying for the last week. Sofia stirred once again on your hip, looking out the window and gawking for herself.

“That’s daddy, baby…” you hushed to her.

“Da-...?” she stumbled over the foreign words.

“Yeah, Dad,” you sighed, walking to the front door to greet Javier as he knocked.

“Javier,” you reacted plainly, swinging the door to the modest three-bedroom rancher you now kept to yourself, a town over from the ranch. 

“Y/N…” he sighed, looking to you first, and then Sofia, “Sofia…you’re so big.”

“Wanna show daddy how old you are, Soph?” you modeled three fingers, to which she mimicked with her childlike chubby fingers.

“Wow….” he sighed in a dreamlike tone, his absence suddenly becoming real. 

He had missed what every first time father hopes to see; the first birthday, the first tooth, the first peanut butter (Sofia had handled that one like a champ, scraping the residue off the roof of her mouth, immediately begging for more) and of course, the big ones; the first steps, first words, and so on. You had held those precious memories close to your heart. Sofia was your precious princess; and you had wanted her to blossom into an amazing girl, even if you had to do it on your own.

“Come on….we can go sit in the playroom…” you led Javier into the playroom which neighbored the kitchen.

You sat Sofia down for playtime, to which she immediately seized the opportunity and started playing with her favorite toys. You sat down on the couch, and Javier sat next to you, a comfortable distance between you two. Too close for friends, too far for partners who once shared the same bed.

“Y/N…”

“Listen, Javi….I know you’re here to make good...but I’m happy, and so is Sofie. And we’re doing just fine.”

“That the thing, Y/N, I’m not.”

“That’s not what you said before you left us to chase drug lords in Columbia….”

“I know.”

“Then what? Why are you here?”

“I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“Listen...I forgave you a long time ago, Javi….but I’m much better off now. And maybe that’s because you’re not here.” 

“I want to be here. For Sofia.”

“You don’t get to decide when just to come into her life and then leave again when it’s convenient for you.”

He sighed before starting again, looking down at the toddler playing with a stack of blocks on the rug, “I realized when I was down there how much I needed this….needed a family.”

“What? The War on Drugs is changing your heart? Just like that?”

“Y/N...let me. While I was down there I realized that I was bigger than myself, that I needed something else to live for. My career is about me and what is the best for me, and who knows...maybe someone else. But when I go home at the end of the night to my empty apartment and my empty bed….I can’t help but think back to you. I’ve been thinking about this a lot...and what it means to be a dad...and I want to be that again.”

You inhaled a deep breath, considering his proposal. If you were as naive as you were when you first met him, you might have believed him, but the two years where you were actually married to the man eventually dwindled into the most catastrophic two years of your life. 

The fights were incredibly violent when Javi was stressed; he would pour himself a heavy glass of bourbon and would suck it down before you could say anything. Of course, as you floated around him, tending to his every need, he poured another glass, and another, eventually rendering himself intoxicated in the pale light of the hood above the stove, long after you had decided to go to bed. He would stumble up the stairs, mumble something about how the ranch was “too damn big for him to manage like this” and you would roll over in bed and hope he wouldn’t try anything in his current state.

He never touched you when you said no. He was a respectful man. His father had raised him well like that. As a matter of fact, when things started to go downhill, Papa was one of the first people you reached out to, before your own parents. Papa mentioned something about “talking some sense into the boy”, knowing what was best for him; you.

Nevertheless, you fought with Javier. And it went beyond your average, everyday couple domestics. Your fights were brutal and dug deep, riddled with personal attacks and jabs that left a heavy scar in their wake. 

As Javier begged for his place back into your life, you couldn’t help but think of the lonely nights spent crying into the duvet of the queen sized bed, while he slept on the couch downstairs. You didn’t think you could bear anymore nights like that, and you staked your claim.

“Javi...I can’t just let you waltz back in here on the promise that you’ll become a better man. I just can’t do that to Sofia.”

“Y/N...I promise I’ve changed. I mean it. I’ve seen what happens to the world when men become too powerful...and I can’t raise my little girl in a world like that without a father.”

“I’m going to need you to prove that to me.”

“I promise. I’ll do anything. Absolutely anything. Once this is all over, and there’s a bullet in Escobar’s head...I’ll come back to you and Sofia and I’ll be the man I’ve always promised to be.”

“Javi?”

“Yes, mija?”

“You better not be lying to me.”

tagged: @smokahuntis​