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thosewickedlovelies · 2 years ago

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Its would be literally impossible for me to choose a favorite installment of this series, but this one has got to be high on the list. The way they know Santiago so well to act how they do after The Event 👀. How santiago chooses to stay. He still feels that itch to go, to run- but he chooses otherwise. Just for tonight 😏

Homecoming: stay, stay, stay

Summary: After Santiago spends the night with you and Frankie, he has to make a decision about what comes next. Part of the main timeline and is a sequel that takes place directly after Coming Home .

A/N: posting this a day late on a Friday instead of my regular Thursdays as Tumblr decided to mess with my queue, sorry folks.

Pairing: Santiago x female reader (you) x Frankie

Wordcount: 3000 words

[Series Masterlist] [Main Masterlist]

Santiago feels like an old lady in a retirement home.

Everything about this room feels like it was transported from another time. There’s an antique display cabinet in the corner of the room that is stuffed with archiving boxes, old trinkets and one particularly haunted looking porcelain doll that gives him the creeps.

Every morning he wakes up to that hideously outdated flowery wallpaper that looks like Grimace had one too many Happy Meals and vomited all over the guest bedroom.

That, paired with the old timey lace curtains by the window all serves to lend this room the vibe of a bedroom that belongs to an elderly woman. A particularly old fashioned lady at that. Santiago’s pretty sure Betty White would not be caught dead in here.

He yawns, stretching out his back along the mattress as he does his best to avoid any eye contact with the haunted doll less it places a curse on him. For a brief moment, he contemplates going downstairs and asking Frankie to make a trip to the closest trash yard. Failing that, maybe a church to perform an exorcism. But you’d notice within a heartbeat, and he’s pretty sure you’d replace it with two new haunted dolls in its place out of spite.

This room isn’t done yet. You and Frankie are taking the renovation one room at a time, which is why the guest bedroom is in this state. Your main bedroom was much nicer. The walls are an ivory white, where the afternoon sun would paint it with a warm and lazy golden hue in the afternoon. Cozy and warm, with sheets that smells of your shampoo mingled with Frankie’s scent of cedar wood and faded motor oil.

It’s a very good room.

A room that he hasn’t returned to since that afternoon when he woke up half-naked in your bed, tangled between the two of you, where his first waking thought had been the memory of tasting himself on Frankie’s tongue. The second thought he had that morning, was that he’d really gone and fucked it up now.

All he could think of as he was lying there, was the inevitable serious talk that the three of you would have to have.He was absolutely certain you would wake up, take one look at him, pin his feet to the floor with that gaze of yours and tell him you need to talk.

Talk about:

What this meant.

What comes next.

What Santiago is planning to do.

Santiago is lousy with these things. He doesn’t do talks about the future. For a man whose livelihood was intel and planning, he is surprisingly shit at long-term goals for himself. He’s good at committing to something that has a finish line that he can see, a mission with an expiration day. But he’s not a man that is ready for anything permanent meant to last for the rest of his life.

The mere thought ‘permanently’ has his skin itching with the self-destructive impulse to run bare feet all the way to Tampa International Airport.

To his surprise though, the dreaded talk never happened that morning.

Instead, when all three of you woken from your nap, you had announced that you were hungry and then the three of you headed downstairs like nothing out of the ordinary had taken place.

Like, having your best friend watch you fuck your husband is just another Saturday night.

At the end of that night he’d slinked away to the guest bedroom before either of you had a chance to ask him to sleep in yours. That way, he figured, he could postpone the inevitable talk until the next morning and he could spend the entirety of that night coming up with what he wanted to say.

Then the next morning came and neither of you corner him then either. He was so relieved he decided not to look at horse's gift in the mouth and question it. So he said nothing.

Since then, the two of you have been acting like nothing has changed between the three of you. It is a tourniquet that abates the worst impulses in him that usually wants to make a run for it.

And that’s good, it’s great. It’s the best case scenario for Santiago. To extend this armistice for as long as humanly possible.

Except a week has passed now. Nothing has happened, and Santi is no longer sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. There’s a part of him that can’t stand it. A part of him that wants you to confront him. Take the choice out of his hands and force him to plainly spell it out, force him to stay.

Santiago stares up at the doll in the cabinet. Fuck, he can't stay in this room. Time to leave, before it blinks back at him.

A big yawn leaves him, and he finally forces himself to get out of bed and head downstairs towards the kitchen.

You’re already seated by the table, paperwork spread all in front of you with a marking pen in hand. You don’t look up, but you sense him all the same as you greet him.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty. Coffee’s in the pot for you.”

It’s become a ritual for him. He wakes up around noon, and by the time he is downstairs, there’s already coffee made for him. Pouring himself a cup, steam rises from the surface and he’s always amazed by how it is always piping hot.

“Where did you get the coffee maker?” Santi asks.

At the table, your red pen strikes through a whole paragraph and Santiago feels a twinge of sympathy for whoever student’s paper you’re grading.

“From Walmart, how come?”

“Just curious, I had a similar one back in Colombia and it was never this good. When I set mine on keep warm, it comes out tasting like shit after an hour. Don’t know how yours is able to keep the coffee fresh for so long when it’s been out all morning.”

“That’s because it hasn’t been out all morning. I make it fresh for you. You think Frankie and I would dare to make Princess of the Pea lukewarm stale coffee? you’d never let us hear the end of it.”

He can’t help the chuckle that bubbles up in him. Because you’re right, he would definitely let you hear his share of complaints.

“How do you know when I’ll be awake?”

“You’ve been waking up at noon everyday since you got here, except last weekend when we all had a nap until the afternoon."

Something lurches in his chest at your words. The reminder that that morning did in fact happen and that it hasn’t been mysteriously wiped from yours and Frankie’s memory.

“You don’t need to do that. I might wake up earlier or later than that. Seems a bit of a waste to throw out a whole batch if I am not on time. I can make my own coffee,” he says and he cringes at how he sounds like such a fucking brat. Fuck, he doesn’t know himself why he he is acting like this.

You finally look up, tilting your chin until it rests on your hand, considering him. But where he expects a scowl, the corner of your lips tug as if you’re trying to hold back a smile. There’s something about the amusement in your eyes that tells him that this is exactly what you expected him to do.

“It’s just coffee, Santiago.”

Santiago moves to sit opposite to you at the table, then he reaches over to the window sill, grabbing a worn out paperback. He opens the book to the page where his bookmark still sits from where he left it yesterday noon.

Warm sunlight filters through the large windows as he starts to read. There is the faint sound of your pen scratching against paper. Every now and then he'll look up to watch the minute expressions on your face. Watch the way your mouth twists, and your brows raise or knits in reaction to what’s written in front of you as you’re grading papers.

Someone's getting a D.

It is one of the most idyllic atmospheres that Santiago finds himself in for years.

It’s so domestic.

“What book are you reading?” you ask, as you look up from your papers.

“Just something I picked up from the airport.”

With a quiet hum, you walk up and over behind his chair. You lean over, close enough that your nose practically presses up against the words on the page. Given that you’re wearing your glasses, there is no practical reason for why you need to be this close to make out the words.

“Is it any good?”

The back of his neck prickles with heat, and it’s all he can do not to lean back against your touch for more.

Fuck— he can’t focus.

He wonders if you’re testing him. God knows, a week is more than long enough to talk things through like adults instead of constantly procrastinating the way he has been doing.

At some point both of you are bound to lose your patience with him. The right thing for Santiago is to rip off the bandaid now and air out everything.

But the logical part of him knows better. It is urging him to shut up and not rock the boat. Because if he opens his mouth, and says the wrong thing, he could be opening the wrong valve to a floodgate that cannot be closed behind him.

“Why aren’t you pushing this?” Santiago asks.

You turn your head to look at him, eyes widened. “Pushing what?”

“Why haven’t you brought up what happened?”

Your lips quirk into a knowing smile and it dawns on him. He’s been played, like a well worn guitar and you know every string and note as you strum and pluck him to dance to your tune.

“Santiago, if we sat you down at the table and told you, ‘we need to talk’, your first instinct would’ve been to hoof it to the airport, boarding the first flight out of Florida.”

“I wouldn’t–” Santiago starts in protest, but stops himself before he finishes the sentence. He wouldn’t have what? Not run away? That’d be a lie and you both know it.

“You’d run so fast there would be permanent skidmarks on my kitchen floor”

Santiago bites his tongue at that. Because once again, you’re not wrong.

“I’m not good at this,” Santiago says. It’s the only thing he can think of saying right now that he trusts as true. “It’s not that I’m planning on running from it, I just can’t promise you I’ll stay.”

“Santiago, you don’t have to make a promise. You can just–” you bite your tongue, not finishing the sentence as you look away. You both know what the last word on your tongue was. Still it surprises him all the same when you say it. “Stay”.

What the hell is wrong with him that even such a heartfelt invitation has his throat swell up in panic, knees itching to get up and run. You must sense it too because you reach out and take his hand in yours.

“Doesn’t have to be forever. Stay for as long or as short as you want to. You don’t have to make any life-long promises or permanent plans right now.”

Santiago doesn’t know what to say to that. He looks down to your hands, where you’ve looped your pinkie around his. There’s a flash of a memory of the way you always used to do this every time you drove him to the airport when he was due to be shipped out. That moment right before you two would have to say your goodbyes at the drop off point.

“If it helps, you can consider your stay on a trial basis?” You joke, but as hard as you try to keep the humor in your voice, he can hear how your voice breaks a little and it kills him.

“I can’t do that. You have a life with Frankie. I can’t do that to you.”

“You’re not doing anything to us. Frankie wants you here. You know he does.”

Dragging his eyes away from your joined hands, he gazes up at your face and draws strength from there before he speaks. “Do you want me to stay?”

“You already know the answer to that,” you say and even though Santiago knows what the answer is, he’s disappointed all the same that he can’t hear the words.

You tilt your head, watching him closely, then you lean in closer until your forehead presses up against his. “I always have, Santiago.”

Santiago fucking hates this room.

That haunted porcelain doll is staring at him and even in the dark he can see the glow of its eyes. This is how every horror movie starts.

He’s been lying here for what must be a good hour or two, unable to sleep. Partly because of that creepy fucking doll. But mostly, because the conversation the two of you had downstairs is running on an endless loop in his head, like a radio station playing the same three summer hits over and over again. Except instead of Rihanna crooning about Umbrellas all he hears is the invitation to stay stay stay.

Stay with you and Frankie in this beautiful home that the two of you have built together.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to. He just can’t. Give it a month and Santiago knows that the itch to go will thrum in every vein until he can’t sit still.

He can see it clearly. Him sitting on the deck, beer in hand at one of Molly’s Saturday barbecues. The smell of grilled charcoal wafting through the backyard. Benny will be talking about the outcome of his latest match. From afar, Santiago will catch a plane fly over the sky in the corner of his eyes and the only thing he’ll feel is the desire to go, doesn’t matter where, just far away from wherever he is.

It’s what he’s done countless times before. But if he does it this time, if he promises to stay and still leave. This time he doesn’t think Frankie will be able to forgive him again.

His eyes drift to his zip up bag dumped in the corner. He never did unpack. If he gets out of bed now, he can be up and dressed in five, can probably call a cab to drive out here in twenty, arrive at the airport an hour after that.

Stay, you’d said. It doesn’t even have to be forever.

He pushes himself up into a sitting position by his elbows, eyes flickering between his zip-up bag and the hideous porcelain doll that is giving him the evil eye.

That’s another reason for him to leave isn’t it? That fucking doll alone.

There’s a dull ache, begging to grow into a migraine sitting behind his eyes, and he drags his hand over his face to soothe himself.

Stay, and it could be on a trial basis.

Pushing the bed covers aside, Santiago gets out of the bed, walking towards the corner of the room until he’s hunching over in front of his zip-up bag staring into the fabric like it’s going to tell him the answer.

Stay, because you have always wanted him too.

Standing upright, he takes care not to bump into the frame of the bed as he walks out into the hall. The wooden floor creeks with every step he takes until he is standing in front of your bedroom.

The door is slightly ajar and the soft glow of the bedside lamp is still on. He knocks gently on the door before opening it wider.

You’re sitting cross-legged on the bed, hunched over the same schoolpapers you were working on earlier. Frankie is lying next to you reading a manual on flight mechanics.

When Santiago enters, Frankie’s the first to look up, mouth wide open in stunned surprise that makes him look like the very fish he’s nicknamed after.

But you? You’re smiling. Warm and expectant. As if there was never any doubt in your eyes that he was going to show up here tonight. There’s a part of Santiago that is just the slightest bit annoyed at how you know him better than anyone else in the world, including himself.

“Scoot over,” he says, as he walks over to your side of the bed. “Can’t get any sleep in that room with that haunted fucking doll staring into my soul.”

Without so much as a word, you scoot to the end of the bed, patting the middle of the mattress in invitation. At the sight of the gesture, there’s an itch starting in his legs, that telltale urge to turn around and run the other way.

That feeling may never go away. Might always be there for as long as he’s with you two. Cold sweat prickles at his back at the thought of it, and for a second he swears that he can feel the walls closing in.

But he decides to walk towards you anyway. Straight forward, before he changes his mind, until his knees are touching the mattress and he’s climbing in. He drags the quilt with him as he goes and finds himself lying in the middle of the bed.

“Just for tonight,” Santiago mumbles as he pulls at your pillow to steal a bigger share of it for himself.

“Yeah,” you answer, smiling as big as ever, and all the wrangled up doubt in him about his decision, slowly melts at the sight of it. “Stay for tonight.”

He hears Frankie’s chuckle from behind him. It’s breathless and pitched, the kind of laugh you’d accidentally let slip after holding your breath in suspense for a long time.

You lie down next to Santiago, inching closer until his body is pressed between Frankie and you. And even though your closeness makes the space he has for himself decrease, when several strands of your hair tickle against his cheek, the constricting walls around Santiago recede again until he can breathe a little bit easier. The itch in his knees is still there, but it’s just part of the background compared to the weight of Frankie’s arm draped over his hip, and your ice cold feet tucked between his calves.

Stay, you’d asked. He thinks he can do that for now.

Author's Note: So this part belongs to the main timeline and takes directly after Coming Home . I've been meaning to write this for over a year but then got distracted by all the smutty oneshots for 30 Pieces... I will probably start writing more into the main timeline which is going to be a mix of short and longer oneshots, and maybe even smaller multi-part chapters while mixing it up with the smutty vignettes as always.

Dedications: Always and forever and an extra day, this is dedicated to @thirstworldproblemss who has been listening to my insane ramblings about these three since day one, back when I only had a vague and abstract idea of a Frankie, Santi and reader one-shot that has now turned into this.

Also to @frannyzooey who has been sending me asks on a daily basis and inspired me to write again for these three love clowns. I love you

#have i mentioned that i love them #santi fics #frankie fics

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inkskinned · 1 year ago

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at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

#every time someones like ''AI will replace u" im like. u will have to fucking KILL ME #there is no replacement here bc i am not filling a position. i am just writing #and the writing is what i need to be doing #writeblr #this probably doesn't make sense bc its sooo frustrating i rarely speak it the way i want to #edited for the typo wrote it and then was late to a meeting lol #i love u people who mention my typos genuinely bc i don't always catch them!!!! :) it is doing me a genuine favor!!!#my friend says i should tell you ''thank you beta editors'' but i don't know what that means #i made her promise it isn't a wolf fanfiction thing. so if it IS a wolf thing she is DEAD to me (just kidding i love her)#hey PS PS PS ??? if ur reading this thinking what it's saying is ''i am financially capable of losing this'' ur reading it wrong #i write for free. i always have. i have worked 5-7 jobs at once to make ends meet.#i did not grow up with access or money. i did not grow up with connections or like some kind of excuse #i grew up and worked my fucking ASS OFF. and i STILL!!! wrote!!! on the side!!! because i didn't know how not to!!!#i do not write for money!!!! i write because i fuckken NEED TO #i could be in the fucking desert i could be in the fuckken tundra i could be in total darkness #and i would still be writing pretentious angsty poetry about it #im not in any way saying it's a good thing. i'm not in any way implying that they're NOT tryna kill us #i'm saying. you could take away our jobs and we could go hungry and we could suffer #and from that suffering (if i know us) we'd still fuckin make art.#i would LOVE to be able to make money doing this! i never have been able to. but i don't NEED to. i will find a way to make my life work #even if it means being miserable #but i will not give up this thing. for the whole world.

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