#goodbye drunken days i will still hoard you for hoarding sake

[mxwhore]

WAIT. so no one has claimed this url?? really??

[hiscyarika]

Landslide: Chapter Three

Word Count: 7.2k

Summary: Reader revisits the life that she and Javier once shared together. Javier seeks to escape his father’s haunting words. 

Warning(s): Angst, Alcohol Use/Drunkenness 

A/N: So it’s only been three days since I posted Ch2, but here you go anyways. I put my heart and soul into this chapter, and I just hope that you guys are really able to connect with it and feel something when you read it. It’s a lot of angst, but this is a really important chapter, and a bit of a turning point for Javier and Reader. Thank you all so, so much for the lovely responses that I have gotten for this series. It really means the world to me. I reread the comments all the time because I just can’t believe that you all are enjoying this so much. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you 💙 And a special thank you to both @aerynwrites and @bestintheparsec for reading this chapter over before I published it. The amount of stupid mistakes you guys caught for me is astounding. Thank heavens I’ve got you or this would be some serious clownery 😂❤️ I love you both endlessly!

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Chapter One, Chapter Two

(Gif by @pascvl​, originally from this post) Please let me know if you’d rather me not use the gif. I’ll remove it immediately! No questions asked.

You shake your head as your mother brings over another box of old junk to sort through. “Mom, promise me you’ll never hoard things like this again,” you tease, chuckling softly and rolling your eyes. You then take a seat next to her on the floor of the attic, ready to help her sort through the items.

“Now you just listen,” she starts, “Some of this stuff can make us a few bucks in the community yard sale.”

“You’re gonna need your own entire estate sale to get rid of all this,” you reply, pulling out the heavy case at the top of the box. It immediately catches your eye, and you laugh as you realize what it is. “I think everything in here is mine,” you tell her, beginning to unzip the aged leather case.

Your mother searches the surface of the cardboard box, looking up at you again when she finds what she’s looking for. “Ah, yes!,” she confirms, “This is some of the stuff we boxed up after you left for San Antonio, when you were working as a secretary for that law firm.”

You open the case, smiling when you see the old typewriter it holds. Dust covers every inch of the little machine, and you giggle softly as you press down on a few of the keys, causing the strikers to shoot up, though there’s no paper for them to mark. “I remember when I got this. It was the first one I had for myself. Dad was so happy I wasn’t using his all the time.” You zip up the case and set it aside. The task of cleaning things out for the yard sale has been forgotten.

“Oh, yes. He would gripe at me all the time, telling me you needed to quit using all of his paper and ink,” your mother tells you, laughing right along with you. She reaches into the box next, pulling out a rather large photo album. She puts it on the floor between you, and you feel a light blush come to your cheeks as she starts to go through all of the pictures she has from your childhood. You remember well that she always had her camera out. She never wanted to miss the opportunity to capture a memory, no matter how silly it might have seemed in the moment.

The two of you go on that way for some time, flipping through the pages of the album. You listen to her as she tells you the stories behind many of the pictures, from times that you were too young to remember. It’s nice, being able to indulge in more lighthearted nostalgia–certainly a welcome change from the more painful memories that you’ve been forced to relive in the last couple of weeks.

Once you’ve gone through the photo album, you continue to pull random things from the box. More long-forgotten trinkets from your teen and college years. It’s nearly an hour later that you make it to the bottom, where you find one last treasure. It’s a shoebox, though as you lift it, you’re not sure what it contains. It’s only when you bring it closer to you that you can read the words on the lid.

Javier - Mi Corazón

You stare at those three words for what feels like a lifetime. They’re written in your elegant handwriting with a thick black marker. You lightly trace the flourished “J” of his name with your finger. You remember the day you put it all together, and you know already a bit of what you’ll find when you open the box.

Your breath hitches in your throat, and at your silence your mother leans closer. She frowns when she too reads what’s on the box. “Give that here, love. I’ll put it away. I’m sorry. I forgot I packed it away in here with everything else,” she says quickly, her tone soft and sorrowful. But you only tighten your hold on the box as she tries to take it from you.

“No,” you tell her, “I want to look at it.” Logically, you know that you’ll only cause yourself more pain by looking through the memories of what your life used to look like with Javier, but you can’t stop yourself. You’ve spent ten years keeping any memory of him locked away. And now that he’s back, there’s nothing you can do to stop the flood as that once young, hopeful life comes rushing back to you.

“Well,” your mother sighs softly, “if you’re sure.” You can tell that she doesn’t like the idea. Since the day Javier left, she and your father have been a little more detached than you ever were. They’ve never blamed the Peñas or sought to shame them. But where you’ve only grown closer to the family, your parents have drifted apart.

You nod. “I am,” you murmur.

—

The shoebox feels much heavier than it truly is as you step into your apartment with it. After dropping your keys on the coffee table in the living room, you go straight back to your bedroom. You close the door behind you, though you know that there won’t be anyone to walk in on you as you willingly subject yourself to more pain.

You gingerly place the box on your desk, staring at it for a few moments as you second guess yourself. It would be so much easier to tuck it somewhere deep into your closet where you won’t find it again, not unless you really want to. You could bury those memories, ones that should be sweet but have been soured by time and circumstance. You could bury your love. You could bury the painful reminders of the man you would have followed to the ends of the earth.

You sit down in the chair and make your choice.

You open the box.

A soft gasp escapes your lips as you look inside, and immediately you feel your chest swell with an emotion that sits somewhere between nostalgia and regret. You can’t place it exactly. Taking a deep breath, you gently lift the first thing from the box. Dried petals crinkle between your fingers as you hold up your corsage from senior prom.

Your mother laughs softly as she walks over to you and Javier. He’s tried his best, but he just can’t get the ribbon tied around your wrist the right way. You giggle as your mother gently takes over, though as she ties the ribbon, your eyes never stray from Javi’s. You can see a light blush creeping up his neck, and you shake your head minutely. “It’s alright,” you mouth to him.

When your mother finally steps away, Javi takes your hand again, pulling you closer to him so that more pictures can be taken. You both hate the fussing, but know that it’s better to just endure it for the sake of your parents. Your mothers, especially, are excited to see the two of you off to the dance.

“Alright. Alright. That’s enough pestering the two of them. Let them go and enjoy their night,” Chucho finally says, and you let out a soft laugh. You can always trust him to come to the rescue.

“Thanks, Pops,” you say. Javier releases you then, giving you a moment to say a quick goodbye to your parents. Once you’ve given your mother a hug and your father a quick kiss on the cheek, you wave to Javi’s parents, then take his hand again. He leads you over to his father’s truck, which he’d so graciously agreed to let you borrow for the night.

Javi walks over to the passenger side with you, helping you up into the cab and making sure that your dress doesn’t get caught as the door is shut. He joins you inside of the truck shortly after, and you move a little closer to him on the bench seat.

“Sorry I couldn’t get the stupid corsage on,” he says, chuckling softly at himself. He lifts your arm, looking at the ribbon that your mother tied and shaking his head.  After a moment though, his eyes meet yours again, his gaze soft. Without breaking eye contact, he brings your hand to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to your knuckles. “You look beautiful tonight, querida,” he murmurs shyly.

You smile softly at him, reaching out to straighten his bow tie. “You’re looking pretty dashing yourself, Javi,” you reply.

He rolls his eyes. “I’m glad you think so. I think this looks ridiculous. There’s a reason I don’t dress like this unless I have to,” he says, though he’s grinning as he speaks.

You press a quick kiss to his lips. “It’s just one night,” you tell him, “Now let’s go before we’re late.”

You let out a soft breath as you think about the rest of that night. The two of you hadn’t spent very long at the dance at all, opting instead to jump back into Chucho’s truck and drive somewhere more quiet. Rather than trying to enjoy yourselves in a dark, sweaty gymnasium filled with your classmates, Javier had driven to the top of a hill not far outside of town. With a perfect view of the softly illuminated town below you, the two of you slow danced for hours to one of the cassette tapes you’d found in the glovebox.

With a mirthless laugh, you wonder if the cassette tape is still there.

Setting the corsage aside, you look back into the box, pulling out a stolen menu from the diner just a couple of blocks from your childhood home. It was a place that you and Javier had frequented, especially during the late hours of the night when you didn’t have anything better to do than drink cheap milkshakes and steal french fries from each other’s plates.

You curse under your breath as Javier foils your plans again, scribbling a quick “X” into the top right corner of the grid, keeping you from winning what was easily the eighth game of tic-tac-toe you’d played in the last twenty minutes. “Damn you, Javi,” you say, tossing the pencil at him, though there’s a grin on your lips as you look across the booth at him.

“Lo siento, querida. But you know you’re not allowed to win,” he replies, catching the pencil against his chest and placing it back on the table. His smile is bright as ever as his eyes meet yours again.

You roll your eyes, picking up the pencil and pulling the menu closer to you. You write out a short note on it, then turn it around so Javi can read it.

You’re a pain in the ass, but I still love you.

Javi lets out a soft laugh, reaching over and taking the pencil from you. He writes something underneath your words, but shields it from your view with his forearm. Only when he’s done does he let you see.

The feeling is mutual, querida. There’s a little heart doodled next to it.

Your expression softens, and you feel your heart swell in your chest. You place both hands on the table, using them to brace yourself as you lean over the table. There’s a knowing look in Javi’s eyes, and he does the same, meeting you in the middle for a tender kiss. “Te quiero tanto, mi corazón,” he murmurs against your lips.

You close your eyes, leaning back further in the chair with the menu held firmly against your chest, close to your heart. A few moments pass where you don’t move, giving yourself some time to compose yourself before you keep going. That hadn’t been the first time he’d called you “mi corazón,” but to hear those words fall from his lips had always caused butterflies to erupt in your stomach. That’s why the same words had been scribed next to his name. He was your heart, too.

Shaking your head to yourself, you sit up again. The next thing you pull out is a dozen or so Polaroid pictures, all with varying dates and locations penned on the back. Most of them had been taken by your mother. She’d always insisted on taking pictures of the two of you whenever she could, and it only got worse after you’d gotten engaged. She’d told you that one day you’d be grateful that so many of these moments were documented. You’d believed her then, though now there’s a part of you that wishes there weren’t so many pictures to remind you of just how deeply integrated into your life that Javier had once been.

There’s one photo, however, that catches your eye as you flip through the small stack. Unlike the others, which are more staged, this one is candid. You’re standing in Javier’s dorm room at Texas A&I, and you immediately recognize it as the day that you and your mother had gone to help him move in. Though really, she’d only gone because you didn’t trust yourself to be able to drive back to Laredo on your own. You would only be a couple of hours away from Javier once you moved into your own dorm in San Antonio, but two hours seemed like days when you’d grown up right down the road from him.

“That’s the last box,” Chucho declares, folding down the cardboard to make it easier to dispose of. You take in a deep breath as it hits you. You’re about to go back home without Javier. You’d already spent the last few nights alone with him, saying your more official goodbyes, but they hadn’t felt real. Now you’re really leaving him.

You feel Javi snake his arms around your waist, pulling your back flush against his chest. He leans down, pressing a kiss to your shoulder, and the gentle contact causes tears to spring into your eyes. You hold on tightly to his arms, not wanting to let him go.

Then there’s a flash, and you look up to see your mother with the camera pointed at the two of you, the photo sliding out the bottom just a moment later. You shake your head at her. “Mama, please,” you chastise her, to which she shrugs, but smiles apologetically. You know she doesn’t mean any harm.

“We’ll give you two a few minutes,” Javier’s mother says. Alicia then takes her husband’s hand, and the two of them file out the door with your mother close behind them.

Javi chuckles lowly, pressing a kiss to the juncture of your neck and your shoulder now that the two of you aren’t being so closely watched. “You’re gonna be alright,” he whispers.

“I should have just applied here,” you murmur, frowning deeper. As an English major, you could have chosen to go to school just about anywhere.

“No. You liked visiting San Antonio. You’ll have fun there. I promise,” he tries to convince you. “And we’ll both be home for holidays and spring break,” he pauses to kiss your temple, “though I think a spring break trip with just the two of us sounds like a good time.”

You grin at the idea. “That would be nice,” you reply softly.

Javi loosens his grip on you, but only enough to turn you so that you face him. He brushes a few strands of hair from your face, tucking them back behind your ear. As your eyes meet his, they fill with tears, and there’s nothing you can do to stop them as they begin to slide down your cheeks.

“Don’t cry, querida. Please,” he whispers, cradling the back of your head as you bury your face in his chest. For his sake, you take a few deep breaths, pulling yourself back together.

Once your tears are mostly dry, you look up at him again. “Alright. Alright. I’m done,” you say, cracking the slightest smile.

Javi smiles back down at you, leaning in for another kiss. He stops just before his lips can capture yours. “It doesn’t matter how far away we are. It doesn’t change anything,” he murmurs.

“I love you, Javi,” you whisper, taking his face gently in your hands and closing the remaining distance between the two of you.

“I love you too, mi corazón.”

A single tear escapes you as you relive the tender moment, though you quickly wipe it away with the sleeve of your shirt. For just a moment, you think about shutting the box and leaving it alone–at least for the night. But you’ve already gotten yourself sucked in the current. The only thing you can do now is ride it out.

You continue looking through all the old memories, reliving the moments almost as vividly as the day they happened. There’s a keychain from the spring break trip that you and Javier did actually take. You find a cheesy birthday card, the cork from the bottle of wine he’d brought you the night he proposed. There’s even a couple of letters that he’d written to you during those college years filled with lofty promises about what your lives would look like once you graduated and got your careers started.

It’s as you read the letters that your emotions get the better of you, and your single tear gives way to a wave. More than once he’d described the day that the two of you would finally be married, and it tears you apart to know that he’d painted that picture so vividly in your mind, only to be the one to so cruelly destroy it at the last moment.

Just as you think you’ve made it to the end of memory lane, you find two more things left in the box, buried at the bottom. The first is a piece of cardstock. Time has yellowed the original white color, and when you turn it over, you feel your heart drop to your stomach.

It’s your wedding invitation.

They were a formality that your grandmother had insisted on, even though you and Javier had both agreed that it wasn’t necessary. The wedding was supposed to be a smaller, family affair, much in the way that Danny’s had been. There were a lot of the traditional details that you just hadn’t been worried about. The ceremony wasn’t your priority. It was being able to call Javier your husband that mattered the most. As long as you were able to say “I do” with Javier, you’d be the happiest woman in the world.

The last thing in the box is a small drawstring pouch. You can hear something metallic jingling inside. You pull the drawstring open and shake the contents into your waiting palm. Immediately, your fist closes around the three rings: your engagement ring, and the wedding bands meant for you and Javier.

A choked sob forces itself from your lips, and you hold your closed fist close to your chest, right over your heart. You don’t know why they were in the box or who put them there. You haven’t even seen the wedding bands since they were handed over for safekeeping before the wedding.

However, your last memory of your engagement ring is all too vivid.

You stand in the back room of the church, your mother standing with you. You’re both waiting for Chucho to tell you that Javier is ready, and that it’s time for you to walk down the aisle. Anxiety has taken up residence in your chest, and while you try to convince yourself that it’s only wedding jitters, you can’t help but feel like there’s something very wrong.

“Mama, what time is it?,” you ask quietly. It’s the only way you can keep your voice from shaking. It feels like there’s barbed wire wrapped around your throat. Speak any louder and you know you’ll be fighting off panicked tears.

She looks at the watch on her wrist, sighing softly. “It’s a quarter after three, honey,” she admits. The wedding was supposed to start at three. “Let me go see what’s going on, sweetheart. I’m sure it’s nothing. Probably just a lost boutonnière or a button that needs sewn back on. Take a deep breath. You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she tells you. You nod, taking a set on one of the benches.

As you wait, you start twisting your engagement ring around on your finger. It’s been a nervous tic since the day Javi put it on your finger, and even as the edges of the metal rub your skin raw, you can’t bring yourself to stop. Even as you try to breathe deeply, nothing helps assuage the panic that you feel. Surely someone would have given a warning if it were a simple issue. Surely they wouldn’t leave you so worried for something so trivial.

The passage of time is lost on you. There’s no clock in the room and in your panic, you can’t be sure how long your mother has been gone. But when you hear the knob on the door turn, you’re immediately on your feet, nearly tripping over your dress as you move across the room to whoever is coming in.

Tears blur your vision when you see the somber look on Chucho’s face, his eyes tinged red with tears of his own.

“What happened? Where is he?,” you ask desperately. Without waiting for an answer, you try to make your way past the older man, set on going to the other dressing room yourself to find Javier. But Chucho wraps his arms around you, preventing you from moving any farther.

He shakes his head. “He’s gone, mijita. I’m sorry.”

And just like that, your whole world comes crashing down on top of you. Burying you and the life you’d wanted to live so fiercely.

The first sob that claws its way from your throat sounds more like a scream, and you bury your face in Chucho’s shoulder, letting him take most of your weight as you all but collapse in his arms. “Where is he?,” you beg, “Pops, where did he go?”

Chucho is quiet, his voice thick with emotion as he speaks. “I don’t know, mijita. He left without telling anyone. No one saw where he went,” he tells you. He sniffs softly, tightening his hold on you.

“Why?,” you whimper, raising your head just enough to look Chucho in the eye. But seeing the look on his face only makes your chest throb. Your breaths come in sharp gasps as you wait for an answer, though you know that he doesn’t have one.

He just shakes his head.

“God, what did I do? What did I do,” you weep, your fists curling tightly around the edges of his suit jacket, and you bury your face in the crook of his neck. You can just barely hear him trying to shush you, to soothe you in any way that he can. You’re shaking violently with every cry that escapes you, and though you know you’re breaking Chucho’s heart, you can’t bring yourself to stop. You’ve never felt grief like this, so forceful and agonizing and real. You feel like you’ve been pulled underwater and your lungs are burning for air that they’ll never get. You know that they won’t

Javier was the air you breathed, and now he’s gone, leaving you to suffocate alone. 

You sit there at your desk, unending waves of tears streaming down your cheeks. You’re not in the same fit of hysterics that you were on that day, but you still feel the same anguish, the same throbbing in your chest. It burns, a reminder that you haven’t truly lived or breathed since the day Javier left. Slowly, you uncurl your fingers from around the rings, wincing at the indentations in your palm from where you’d held them so tightly. You drop them onto your desk, not at all bothering with the pouch you’d found them in.

You stand from the chair, forcing your tears away as you stalk out of your room and towards the front door. You grab your jacket and your car keys, and then you’re gone.

There’s only one way to drown out the pain you feel.

—

Towards the edge of town, out past the railroad tracks, there’s a run down bar that Javier used to frequent when he was younger, before he took off for Columbia. As he pulls into the crowded parking lot, he’s not surprised to see that the building hasn’t changed a bit. The paint is still worn. The roof still needs patched, and even the busted window hasn’t been replaced, just patched over with plywood boards.

Before he even gets out of his dad’s truck, he can hear the roaring conversations of people trying to be heard over the rest of the background noise. He sighs, running his hand over his face before he gets out. This isn’t the most ideal situation. Javier would much prefer to be drinking in the comfort of his own home, but he knows that his father is getting suspicious about the amount of alcohol he’s been consuming for the past couple of weeks. He can deal with the noise for a few hours if it means he doesn’t have to sit through another one of Chucho’s heart-to-heart talks. There have been a few too many since he came back from Colombia.

He just hopes that no one bothers him. The last thing he needs is to have all of Laredo down his throat asking him about Colombia. He never wanted to be a hero. He doesn’t think of himself that way. How can he? After everything he’s done, all of the destruction he’s caused, how could he ever be considered a hero? If only they knew what kind of man Colombia had turned him into.

Javier opens the door, stepping out of the cab. He shuts and locks the door before walking into the bar. It’s hard to see through the thick haze of smoke that fills the room, and it doesn't help that the only dim lighting comes from the television and the neon lights on the walls. All that matters to him right now though, is that he’s able to drown out the echo of his father’s words in his head.

If it’s even possible, Javier’s sleeping habits have worsened. Where he once dreamed of the hurt in your eyes when he’d seen you in the market, he now only sees you being held in his father’s arms the moment you learned he’d run off. He can’t shake the haunted look in his father’s eyes as he’d finally revealed the details of that day. And all Javier feels is guilt. He’s being crushed under the weight of knowing just how deeply he’d hurt you.

He doesn’t even want to explain himself anymore. He knows that nothing he says will ever rid you of the scars he’s left on your heart. It’s something that he’ll never forgive himself for.

Javier takes a seat at the bar, and he’s surprised that there’s even a seat open, given just how crowded the room is. He remembers though, even when he was younger, the bar never really seemed to hit any sort of capacity. People kept coming, and somehow it all worked out. Like somehow the finite space of the building became infinite when lonely, broken people came seeking refuge.

Thankfully, there’s a glass of whiskey in front of him just moments later. Javier takes a sip of the dark amber liquid, closing his eyes as he feels the warm burn down his throat and into his chest. He’s glad to feel something there that isn’t the suffocating sense of grief and guilt he’s felt since the night of Danny’s wedding.

But he knows his father was right. About all of it. Even if he doesn’t want it to be true, Javier knows that he’s screwed up, and that he’s running back to Colombia just so he doesn’t have to face it. But it would be so much easier to just go back to work, back to dismantling cartels and incarcerating drug lords. He could bury himself in his work, in booze, in women.

Women that are not you.

And as he drains the first glass of whiskey and starts on the second, Javier realizes that there’s one more thing his father was right about: he’s not the man that he used to be.

He closes his eyes again, thinking about the simple way that life used to be before he took off. Before Escobar, everything was linear. He met you, fell in love with you, planned to marry you. You’d both gone to school and started your careers, ones that would take you far away from Laredo if that was what you’d wanted.

And God, did he want that. It was one thing that he had always talked about with you. You’d both grown up feeling caged in by the small-town atmosphere. College had been the most freeing experience. The feeling of independence and anonymity was so intoxicating that neither of you could get enough of it. You’d been so on board with his idea of escaping Laredo, no matter where the two of you ended up. “I’ll follow you anywhere, Javi,” you’d told him once.

You would have. He knows that beyond any doubt in his mind. Even to Colombia.

He opens his eyes again, discovering that his glass is empty again. His eyes search the room for the bartender, but something else catches his attention. Through the haze of smoke and sea of moving bodies, it’s hard for him to know for sure, but as he looks a little longer, he finds that he does indeed see what he thinks he sees.

You’re sitting at a small table in the back of the bar, nursing a glass of something he can’t quite make out in the inadequate lighting. But then you stop, like you can sense his eyes on you. You turn, your head toward the bar, your gaze moving slowly as you try to find the source of your unease.

Your eyes lock onto his, and in the low neon lights he can see that they’re glistening with unshed tears.

Javier feels his heart leap into his throat, and he watches as your entire body tenses. He drops his gaze, looking back down at the empty glass in front of him. Immediately his father’s words come back to him. He’s done seeking you out and forcing you into conversations that you don’t want to have.

But he looks up again when he sees quick, unsteady movement in your general direction. Javier doesn’t know how much you’ve had to drink, but one look at you as you walk to pay your tab tells him that you’re in no shape to drive yourself home. He stays still, waiting to see what the bartender does. If he’s any good at his job, he’ll make sure that you don’t walk out of the bar without a safe way to get home.

You walk away without a word from the bartender. And though there are plenty of other people around you, none of them seem to feel the need to stop you either.

“Fuck,” Javier mutters, knowing that he has to do something.

After slapping a few bills onto the counter, he stands from his barstool, nearly knocking it over with the force of his rapid movement. He then follows you out of the bar, calling out your name before you can reach your car. You stop, frozen in your tracks.

“What do you want, Javier? Haven’t you figured it out yet? I want nothing to do with you!,” you shout back at him, turning on your heels to face him. Your eyes are dark with anger, and he knows immediately that this isn’t going to go as smoothly as he might have dared to hope.

Javier takes a tentative step in your direction, swallowing thickly. He holds his palms up in mock surrender. “You’re not driving yourself home. I’m just making sure you get there safely. That’s all,” he tells you. You straighten up then, and he can practically see the gears turning in your head as you study him closely. In your anger, he can see that you’ve sobered up considerably, but he’s still not taking any chances, not with your well being and quite possibly your life.

You scoff, shaking your head. “Fuck off, Javier. I’m fine. I live right down the road,” you spit back.

“No. I’m not gonna fuck off. I don’t care if it means I have to call your mom myself. You’re not driving home,” he insists.

You take a step closer to him. “Why do you even care, hmm? You didn’t give a shit about what happened to me for ten fucking years, and now all of a sudden you wanna play the good guy who’s just looking out for me? Well that’s bullshit, Peña,” you bite.

“I–”

“No. Actually, you wanna talk about what happened so badly? Let’s do it. Right here,” you start. And even from a distance he can see you trembling. Whether it’s from the cool night air or the heat of your fury, he can’t tell for sure.

“We’re not doing this while you’re drunk,” he states firmly, crossing his arms over his chest.

You take another step forward. You’re only about ten feet from him now. “Oh no. Everything I think about you is crystal clear in my mind, Javier Peña,” you shoot back.

He takes a deep breath, knowing that there’s no escape from whatever you’re about to lay on him. But he knows that he deserves to hear every horrible thing you’ve thought about him in the last ten years. And even then, it won’t compare to what he’s done to you.

“What did I ever do to you?,” you shout at him. “What did I do to make you leave me like that? Didn��t you ever think that maybe I deserved an explanation? And I mean before you left, not ten years after the fact.” Javier stands there in silence, and he just hopes that the people inside the bar can’t hear you over the music and the chatter and the television. The last thing he needs is for this to turn into a spectacle.

“I didn’t know what to tell you,” he admits. It’s not enough.

“You left me without a word, Javier. No warning. Nothing. If it weren’t for your dad, I wouldn’t have ever known what happened to you. For so long I have tried to figure out what happened. Tried to figure out what I did,” you stop for a moment as your voice finally breaks. Javier feels a pang in his chest as your eyes well up with tears. He wonders how many you’ve shed because of him. How much pain will he cause you before this is all over?

“I loved you, Javi. I thought you loved me too, but–”

“I do love you, querida.” He says the words before he can stop himself. He can take your verbal lashing. He can listen to you tell him about all the terrible things he’s done and the consequences of those actions. But he can’t take this. Never this. Even if it makes sense for you to think he doesn’t love you, that he ever stopped, it’s not true.

“Don’t call me that,” is your only response to his words. “You don’t get to fucking call me that anymore. Because you let me believe that we were gonna spend the rest of our lives together. Our story was gonna be the one that I could tell, and then you were just gone,” you weep.

Javier takes a couple of tentative steps forward, so that you’re just within his reach. He wants nothing more than to be able to take you into his arms, to hold you close and comfort you the way that he used to. Every fiber of his being vibrates with the need to wipe your tears away and stay with you until you smile again. But he can’t. The only thing he can do is stand there and watch as you break right in front of him. He’s absolutely helpless.

“You were the love of my life. I gave you everything. I would have followed you anywhere, Javi. But you left me here,” you tell him, your breath coming in short gasps now.

He sighs softly. “I know. I’m so sorry,” he breathes.

You look up into his eyes with a new resolve, despite the effort you’ve already expended. “I hate you,” you declare resolutely.

Javier nods. “You should. That’s the least I deserve for what I’ve done,” he replies, and though his exterior appears unshaken by your words, his heart is breaking in his chest. To hear you say the words makes it all too real.

“I hate you,” you say again, a new wave of tears overtaking you. And then you close the remaining gap between the two of you, shoving at his chest as hard as you can, though in your current state it’s not enough to really move him. “I hate you, Javier,” you repeat, stumbling into him. He doesn’t hesitate to catch you, keeping you upright as your legs give out from under you.

And you keep repeating it, sobbing the words into his collarbone. Every declaration is punctuated by a weakly thrown punch to his chest and torso. He lets you. A sick, twisted part of him wishes that you had the strength to hurt him that way.

“I hate you,” you wail one last time, “but I don’t know how to love anyone else…”

Your hands fall uselessly to his shoulders, gripping onto the lapel of his leather jacket as you continue to cry into his chest. Something inside of Javier breaks as he feels you trembling in his arms. He can feel every bit of the pain that radiates from your body. It brings tears to his eyes and cuts off his breathing. He’s never felt agony this way, not even in Colombia.

Suddenly, Javier understands what his father felt like the day he left.

—

Javier carries you from the truck into your apartment, using the keys he found in your jacket pocket. You’re sleeping restlessly in his arms, soft choked cries escaping you every few minutes, but he’s just glad that he was able to get you home.

He wanders down the hall with you, finding the bedroom relatively easily given the small size of your apartment. He then lays you gently on your bed, frowning at the way your brows are knit together, deep worry lines marring your forehead. Javier has to resist the urge to smooth them out with his thumb. He knows better than to touch you right now, when you’re far less than aware of what’s going on.

Instead, he takes a seat next to you, making quick work of removing your shoes and your socks. He’ll leave you to sleep in your clothes, not wanting to wake you. Sighing, he pushes himself up, feeling exhaustion settling in on his shoulders. It’s been a long night even without considering his inability to sleep.

But as he stands, you stir, one hand blindly reaching at him. Javier looks to see that your eyes are just barely open as you finally manage to wrap your fingers loosely around his wrist.

“Don’t leave me, Javi. Please. Not again,” you whimper.

He knows that you don’t mean it, that they’re just words fueled by alcohol and exhaustion. But the plea still hits him square in the chest. If only he knew you wouldn’t want different when you woke up in the morning, he’d stay right next to you for the rest of the night.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he whispers. If you hear it, he can’t tell. Your eyes are closed again, your hand slowly slipping away from him.

Javier turns to leave, but as he moves to turn off your desk light, he sees the various things spread out on the wood surface. His chest constricts as he realizes what it is and where it came from. All of these memories of what your lives looked like before stare back at him. He lets out a shaky breath, hardly able to believe that you still have the keepsakes.

He gathers it all back up, placing it gently back in the box, and he carries it with him out to the living room, where he too can take the painful trip down memory lane. Javier sits heavily on your couch, placing the box on the coffee table and beginning to reminisce.

By the time he’s done, he understands why you’d ended up at the bar. If he weren’t so exhausted, he’d need another drink too.

As the clock on your wall gently chimes at three in the morning, Javier lays his head down on the arm of your couch. He aches so badly for sleep, that he can’t help but pass out right there.

It’s restless, but sleep nonetheless

—

You wake with a start as the first rays of light filter their way through your bedroom curtains. You look down at yourself, finding that you’re still in your clothes from the previous night. But you don’t know how you got home from the bar. You don’t know how you made it to your bed. You don’t know how your socks and shoes managed to lie neatly on the floor next to you. All you remember is–

Javi.

You stumble out of your bed, moving as fast as your aching, fatigued body can manage even though it makes your head throb. When you make it to the living room, the first place you look is the couch. He never liked leaving you alone on the nights you got drunk.

But he’s not there.

The only sign that Javier has been in the living room is the mess on the coffee table. He’d found the box on your desk. He’d gone through it and relived the same memories you had. You sink down on the couch, resting your elbows on your knees and pressing the heels of your palms into your eyes. Your words come flooding back to you and you let out a shaky sigh. You don’t know where to go from here.

You sit up straight again, noting the early hour, and decide to just crash on the couch for a few more hours. As you settle yourself onto the cushions, you feel something hard press into your back. You reach behind you, your fingers wrapping around the offending object. A groan escapes you as you bring your hand back into your eyeshot.

Javi’s aviators.

You place them on the table. You don’t have the strength to consider the idea of taking them back to him just yet. Instead, you close your eyes, letting the pull of exhaustion put you back under.

The last thing you’re consciously aware of before you fall asleep again is the faint scent of Javier’s cologne under your nose. A soft smile graces your lips, and in your sleep your burrow further into the cushion.

-

Spanish Translations

Mi Corazón - My Heart (Nickname)

“Lo siento, querida.” - “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

“Te quiero tanto, mi corazón.” - “I love you, my heart.”

Mijita - My Daughter (Nickname)

-

Chapter Four

-

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The Magiciains, Queliot fix it fic.

Word count: 2,351 

Summary: Quentin loves Eliot, and the gods aren’t going to keep him from getting back to him. 

You can also read it on AO3

Alice left a note before she completely disappeared. At least she had the decency to explain why she’d run off after two months of relative ease between them. They’re not back together, not by a long shot. But he’s still bitter. At least, he is until he’s sitting in class learning about Magic he can’t fucking cast, and something clicks in his head.  She’d said that things made of magic that didn’t rely on the wellspring were alive and well. Like Vampires, and all the mythical beats that plague fantasy.

It’s no secret how broken up Quentin is about everything. And by everything, it could be simplified to a name;

Eliot.

He’s got Julia and Brakebills and all of this world that used to hold magic, and he’s fine. Except he’s not. Because, in the past four months - which is gods know how long in Fillory at this point - he’s made a couple of realizations:

It wasn’t Brakebills that made him feel better.

It wasn’t magic that made him feel better.

He was in love with Eliot.

And, oh yeah, it was definitely Eliot that made things bearable.

Quentin Coldwater fucking misses Eliot Waugh. And it’s more than the, ‘he’s my friend and he matters’ kind of missing. It’s the full body ache, migraine inducing longing kind of missing. He wakes up missing him, he falls asleep wondering if he’s even alive. Every day, every moment, every thought is of Eliot.

And yeah, it fucked him up a bit in the beginning when he realized that his feelings go beyond platonic with drunken sex thrown in. He’d always found men and women attractive, sure, but he never really thought about it. Which is fucking ridiculous, because even that first day, when he first met Eliot, his first thought was somewhere along the lines of, “Is it even legal to be that beautiful?” But he’d brushed it off as some slip of the brain, brought on by a school exploding into his world.

Which, yeah, ridiculous, Quentin can admit that much.

But, it’s also devastating. Because he could have had all this time, all this fucking time, with Eliot. The threesome wouldn’t have put a rift in their friendship, probably would have still happened, but he wouldn’t have - god. The moment he realized why the threesome affected them all so much was nearly enough to break him. He’d been the one to bring Eliot into it, had stopped him from leaving. Only to outright reject, and blame him the next morning.

All because he was so invested in this relationship with Alice. Alice who doesn’t want him, and never even knew why she did in the first place. Alice who leaves without a goodbye, despite knowing -

There was no goodbye. When he left Fillory, he’d left without a goodbye. To Eliot, to Margo, to anyone. Eliot was busy figuring out what the fuck they were supposed to do, Margo was actually taking the time to accept the fact that she was down an eye, and Quentin, in all his naivety and desperation, wanted to get back to Alice.

He’d killed a god, but he couldn’t be bothered to say a fucking goodbye to the person who meant the most to him.

And by the time he realizes, after Alice tells him the plumber is turning all the magic off, by the time he makes it to the clock - it’s too late. It’s just a regular fucking clock, and he has no way to return to Fillory. Even then, before he realized what Eliot means to him, it crushed him.

But Alice’s note. Alice’s fucking pathetic attempt at making all of this okay - it gives him an idea. It’s crazy idiotic, and there’s no way it can work, but he misses Eliot more than he can even put in words, and every breath is a dagger pressing up against his heart. So, if he’s going to die, he’d rather it be on his terms, not in this once magical school, surrounded by people as lost and confused as he is.

He wants Eliot.

And how, exactly, is he supposed to get back to Fillory when there’s no magic, no portal, no way to communicate?

Quentin fucking Coldwater is going to slay a god damned dragon. He’d killed a god, how fucking hard could it be to kill a dragon? Besides, the very dragon that comes to mind isn’t exactly the nicest bitch this side of Boston.

And, yes, he is drunk, and no, he doesn’t care if he dies.

*

Julia catches him sneaking out. He half expects her to tell him he’s an idiot, but her sparkly fingers twitch, and the next thing he knows, the two of them are heading down to the sewer to kill themselves a dragon.

She laughs at them, calls them, “Puny humans.”

And it’s not easy, because, duh, she’s a fucking dragon, and she can breathe fire. But they do it, and Quentin doesn’t even know how they do it. They just see her giant, lizardly body start sinking into the depths of the water, and then she’s gone. They stare at the black water for a long moment before a hysteric giggle bubbles out of Julia’s lips and they turn to look at each other.

“Q, we just killed a dragon.”

And Quentin wants to feel the joy, and relief with her, but all he can do is turn to the giant hoard of things the dragon had collected over the years and start digging. She watches him for a moment before dropping the sword - they’d stolen it from the deans office - and moving to look through everything with him.

The sun rises before they even make a dent in it massive pile. Julia tells him to take a nap, and she’ll dig, and then if she doesn’t find anything, she’ll take a nap and he can dig.

And that’s just what they do, because of course the dragon couldn’t make it easy, and just leave the damn button lying around for them to find. No, she just had to hide it somewhere in this cavern, and leave them to dig it up. To spend hours, and hours looking through thousands of magical items. And they know they’re magical, because they can sense it. Can feel it when their fingers graze the surface.

Julia thinks its because the dragon is so magical on her own, that her essence somehow sank into everything, and pretty much solar powered everything.

Quentin doesn’t care. He just wants to find the button.

And then, nearly two days later - they haven’t left the sewers at all, too engrossed in their quest - he’s woken up by an excited scream from her. “Q! Wake up! I found it!”

And he lays there for a moment, petrified. Because, yes she found it, and yes everything else in this shit hole may still hold magic, but it could very well be their luck that the button is the one thing void of any magic. But he sits up, and he looks at her, gazes at the box in her hand. He refuses to get his hopes up, even as she brings it to him, grabs his hand and pops the lid.

He closes his eyes and doesn’t open them until he tastes opium in the air.

Even then, though, he digs his nails into Julias arms. “Jules -,”

And she leans in close, whispers, “We’re here, Q. We’re in Fillory.”

So he opens his eyes, and finds a fucking spear staring him in the face, with a fucking fairy on the other end of it glaring at him.

“Oh for fucks sake!”  He feels a bit like Penny, in this moment.

But then, a strong, feminine voice calls, “Wait,” And the spear falls, and a fairy, as white as snow floats towards them, because of course fairies are dramatic. “I know this one.” She tilts her head and examines him. “You are the one that killed Ember. You freed us.”

“I - yes. I killed Ember. Don’t know about freeing you.”

She smiles, sinister and lets her feet finally touch the ground. “You may have one wish, Quentin Coldwater.”

Quentins brow furrows, and he turn his gaze on Julia. “I keep getting wishes, but I din’t know why she’s offering me one . . .Last time I had to hunt down the white lady.”

Julia gives him a look, and shakes her head, turning her attention on the fairy. “Take us to Eliot.”

The fairy sneers at her. “You do not give demands, earth girl. You are expendable.”

Quentin shakes his head, stumbling to his feet, a tight grip on Julia’s hand, “No,” He says, “You won’t hurt her. I want to be taken to High King Eliot, and I want us all to be safe from harm.”

“You ask a lot for someone so near death.”

Quentin lets out a cold laugh at that. “I’ve been near death longer than I’ve been able to breathe, lady. You said I get a wish - that’s my fucking wish!” His voice starts rising, and he ends on a yell, as he takes a step closer to her, pointing an index finger at the ground.

The fairy watches him for a long moment before she nods slow, her eyes never once leaving Quentins. “As you wish, Quentin Coldwater.” She lifts a hand and waves forward some fairies.

As they approach, Quentin asks, “He’s alive, right?” Because he hadn’t thought of it before. He knew it was a possibility, of course it was, that Eliot had been killed by the old gods when they turned off magic, but it hadn’t been a genuine, actual thought until he’s looking into the fairies eyes, and she seems to know something that he doesn’t.

She doesn’t respond, and as the fairy grabs onto his arm, he feels a cool, vast emptiness wash over him. In one minute of silence, she’d been able to strip away all the hope he’s had stocked away these past months, and left him gasping for air.

And then, suddenly they’re in the throne room, surrounded by fairy guards.

“Oh what now -,” the familiar chill of Eliot’s frustration echoes around the room as Quentin opens his eyes and see’s the familiar head of curly brown hair turning around to face them. “I’m - ,” And he stops midspin, his jaw going slack as he looks between Quentin and the fairies. Slowly, he completes the turn, so he can face Quentin head on.

They stand there for what feels like ages. Quentin’s heart is hammering in his chest; he can hear his blood rushing through his hears. Can feel Julia’s hand pressed to his shoulder, but everything’s frozen.

Because it’s Eliot, and he’s alive, and he’s right fucking there.

And then he’s moving, running across the throne room until he’s crashing into Eliot’s chest with a forceful hug, wrapping his arms around him as tight as he can, just to make sure he’s real. He’s not sure he is, not really, until Eliot’s arms move around, slowly, carefully, like he’s not sure this is real either, and grip him just as tightly.

He buries his face in Eliot’s chest, and inhales.

There’s that scent. He doesn’t know what it is, has never asked, - something like the forest, and vanilla, and lilac all mixed together in this one intoxicating scent - but it can only be found on Eliot, and god, he’s missed it. He’s missed this. He’s missed him.

And then Eliot’s pulling away and grabbing at his face, holding him with both hands as he looks down at him. “Am I hallucinating?” He asks, a big manic, confused grin on his lips as his eyes dart between Quentins.

And Quentin smiles up at him, “If you were, how would asking me help?”

And Eliot laughs, pulling him in for another hug, picking him up and spinning him around.

They pull apart again, and Quentin reaches up to cup Eliot’s face, stares up at him, tries to take in every bit of him that he can. There’s a new scar along his cheekbone that Quentin rubs his thumb along. He stares at him, and Eliot watches back. His eyes are just as frantic as Quentin’s as he looks over him.

He doesn’t know who leans in first, but he closes his eyes, doesn’t want to, but can’t resist, and then they’re kissing.

They kiss for a just a moment, close lipped and full of something neither of them know how to feel, before they pull away and again, stop and stare at each other.

Quentin’s the first to speak.

“I fucking love you,” He says, the words rushed and desperate as he runs a hand across Eliot’s jaw, and laces it through the impossibly soft curls at the base of his skull. “I - I didn’t know, and I was stupid, and I shouldn’t have left, I should - I just, I love you, okay? I fucking love you, Eliot.”

And Eliot grins down at him, says, “Of course you do, you loser,” And leans down to pull him back in for another kiss. He stops, just an inch away, furrowing his brow, “You are going to have to tell me how the fuck you go here, though. Magic is dead, or haven’t you heard?”

The corner of Quentin’s lip quirks up, and he nods, almost guiltily, “Yeah, moreso now than before.”

Eliot tilts his head, and pulls back a little further. “What does that mean?”

Before Quentin can respond, Julia’s voice calls out, “He killed a dragon. Just to get to you.” Eliot’s eyes go wide as he snaps them back down to Quentin, and he Quentin makes a face, sorry but not really, and shrugs. Julia adds,  “So like, don’t fuck it up.”

“Of fucking course you killed a dragon. You killed a god - why not a dragon?” Eliot mutters as he pulls him in for another kiss.