#i am enjoying this farrrrr too much fr

[narcolini]

when the crows come home, 3

part one / part two & ao3 link

angel reyes x gn!reader, part three of ?, 4470 words

a/n: update day update day!!! we’re getting besties, we’re getting angst, we’re getting angel being sensible and comforting for once, let me know what you think!

taglist: @drabbles-mc​ @cositapreciosa​ @ashlingnarcos​ (let me know if you would like to be tagged!)

Days are melting into weeks. You’ve been home long enough now that it’s starting to feel you’d never left, somehow. It’d sound stupid if you told anyone that. Ten years can’t slip away that quickly, shouldn’t, even, but it has. Your routine is so repetitive, it’s hard to feel like it hasn’t been happening every day since you were sixteen; get up, shower, breakfast with the parents, carpool with Dad, work with Dad, lunch with Dad, and then the same in reverse. You should’ve never asked him for your old job back, you should’ve moped about until you saw an opening in a coffee shop or something.

The only respite to it all, is the pockets of time you spend with Angel, or EZ, or both. Sometimes. Although, again, like you did at sixteen. Exactly the same as it was from then until the time you moved away, and Angel went to Chino. 

In a selfish way, you’re starting to wish for something equally as drastic to change things up again. But not college, and not prison, and not an engagement that lasted far too many years than it was worth. 

Your dad cuts into the room, half-ready, half-fumbling to catch up with himself. ‘You look like you’re still asleep, kid.’ 

You’re both running late, but he’s the one bothered by it. You’re sat at the table, drinking coffee and buttering toast that’s already gone cold. The excuse of bad traffic will always have your back in times like these. 

‘That’s what this is for,’ you answer, lifting your mug up before taking a gulp. It scalds your tongue, so you swallow quickly and sigh afterwards like it was invigorating instead of miserable. ‘I’ll be wide awake any minute now.'

He grunts in response, nodding as he comes to a stop beside the table. ‘Ridgeford’s PA is on maternity,’ he says, as he loops his tie over itself, watching his hands like he hasn’t done it a thousand times before. Every morning, even. ‘He needs someone to shadow him, transcribe meetings and things.' 

You set your mug down and pick up a slice of toast. ‘Okay, and?’ 

‘Well,’ he huffs, ‘I said you could do it.’ 

‘What?’ You cough through the bite you’ve just taken, crumbs spluttering through your lips. ‘Why?’ you ask, reaching for the coffee again. Burning tongues is a favourable death to choking on breadcrumbs.

He shrugs and pushes the knot up to his collar. ‘You said admin was boring.’

Boring yes, but mundane enough that you can do it without thinking about it. It’s all muscle memory and gossiping with Marie. ‘Never said I’d rather be a PA.’

‘It isn’t that exactly.’ He sighs, like he’s already fed up with the conversation. Like he isn’t the one who’s been daringly assumptive. ‘You’ll just be taking minutes, maybe sending a few emails. Easy stuff.’

‘Dad,’ you chide.  

‘Hey, kid, you asked for a job, remember?’

You also wanted to remain a sentient, self-deciding adult. ‘Right,’ you tell him, agreeing because it makes no difference now. It’s easier to say yes to him, than no to his boss. ‘Whatever. Maybe I’ll like it.’ You won’t, you’re sure of that.

He smiles, satisfied, and rests his hand on the top of your head for a moment. ‘I think you might.’ When he pulls away, he grabs his keys and his briefcase, and slings his jacket over his forearm. ‘We probably shouldn’t carpool,’ he says, ‘incase he sends you on some errands.’

Not exactly a PA, he said. Just someone doing what PAs do. 

‘Sure, Dad. I’ll see you at lunch.’ 

*

Joshua J. Ridgeford is your new enemy. Not through any fault of his own—that’s your dad’s blame to carry—but because the bagel place he sent you to, again, as your dad predicted he would, was closed for refurbishing, and the next nearest place that did bagels was mysteriously, magically, completely sold out. You rang Mr. Ridgeford to explain this, and what did he say? Find something else, then. Enough for ten. The meeting starts after lunch. 

Great. Fucking easy, Josh. You’ve always wanted to role-play as nutritionist for a bunch of bankers in pin-striped suits. 

What you’ve settled on instead, is breakfast muffins. It feels like a bad judgement call before you’ve even paid, but it’s done now, it’s in the process. The three coffees you have, balanced unevenly in a 4-cup tray, are very much reminding you of that fact. It’s go now, with the bag of muffins, or shop around more and spill the one request you’ve managed to successfully fulfil; over yourself, the floor, and the muffins too. 

You thank the cashier and leave, fingers cramping already.

By the time you’re back at the car, you’ve also acquired a paper and a multipack of post-its, both of which you’ve tucked under your armpit, with your arm pinned to your side to keep them there. You feel like a trail-mule. Loaded and braying about it. 

‘I thought that was you.’

The voice comes from behind, warm and friendly and, God, a relief. You turn with a smile already loaded, EZ standing exactly where you expect him to be. He’s in his kutte, which makes him look bigger in a way that Angel’s never seems to, broad and intimidating. Even with EZ’s baby-face plopped on top of it. Angel’s kutte makes him look younger somehow. Boy Scout, comes to mind.

‘Hey.’ You’re standing like a freak, you know it. Rigid and awkward, afraid to move and drop something. You hope your smile is doing enough to let him know it’s not him making you act like that. It’s all this shit Ridgeford wants. ‘How’s it going, Zee?’

He shrugs, hands half-pushed into the pockets of his jeans. ‘Not bad, doing some shit for the club.’ He tilts his head back, and you follow the gesture over his shoulder, to the other side of the street. 

There’s three guys there, members in their leathers. Four bikes parked in a row beside them. You don’t know them really, but you recognise the bearded one as Gilly, and the slim guy next to him as Coco. The other, you’ve never seen before, but ‘prospect’ is plastered on his back so big you don’t even need to ask. He must be as new to them as he is to you. 

‘Boys day out?’ you comment, shifting your gaze back to EZ.

He nods. ‘Yeah, killing time until Bish calls.’

Ah, Bishop. That’s someone you are curious to meet, considering how often he pulls the strings. Though, you aren’t sure how much club stuff you should be getting involved with. Sometimes names are better off left as just names. 

‘You not working today?’ he asks then, flicking his chin toward your obscenely full hands. 

‘Actually,’ you cock your hip, balancing the tray of drinks onto it, ‘this is work.’

He frowns. ‘I thought you had an office job?’

‘You and me both. Can you hold this?’ You put out the bag of muffins, giving him little option but to take it from you, and then push into your pocket for your car keys. The newspaper falls from under your armpit, because of course it does, post-its too, and EZ bends to pick them both up, holding it all without complaint until you have the passenger door open and waiting.

‘Hope they gave you a raise at least,’ he says, as you set the drinks onto the seat.

‘Nope.’ You turn to relieve him of your things. ‘Thank-you, that was seconds from disaster.’

His head shakes, it’s no problem. ‘And hey, you really should—’

There’s a whistle from across the street, meant only for him, but you both abandon conversation to turn to the source. Gilly is waving EZ over to him. Or, well, he waved once, and now he’s turned back to the other two men, who head toward the bikes parked by the sidewalk. 

‘Sorry,’ EZ says, already stepping backwards from you.

You shake your head. ‘S’fine, I gotta get back anyway.’ 

His speed picks up slightly as he turns, but then he stops abruptly—in the middle of the street—and looks back at you to say, ‘You should come around one day, to Pops. I’ll make us food.’

‘Okay.’ You smile easily, nodding. ‘Sounds good.’

*

You lasted ten working days before deciding that ‘unrelenting annoyance’ is more than enough reason to leave a job. Your dad disagreed. Ridgeford disagreed. So, naturally, you quit without notice, at the end of your shift at least, and took yourself to get a drink instead.

And you got drunk. Fucking horribly so. 

So drunk, that when you got home you fell asleep, and when you woke up, the room was spinning still. Then you ate, showered, sobered so quickly that even hot water couldn’t keep you from shaking, and then, God, then reality decided to step over the tub and join you under the shower stream. 

You quit your job. You were unemployed, again. 

The aftermath of that realisation was something you’ll never admit aloud; all tears and frustration and panicked Google searches for local openings, while your hair drip-dried onto your shoulders. It was like the break-up all over again, just on a smaller scale. Thankfully. You made a decision, you followed through with it, and the consequences were right there waiting to trip you up. The only difference was, this time, you attempted some sort of recovery right away. No waiting around for things to get worse. You were pro-active in correcting your mistakes, or at least you were trying to be. 

You haven’t had the guts yet to look over the applications you’d sent off. All you could do is hope they were coherent, at best. 

That was yesterday. Or early this morning, rather. 

Now, you’re watching re-runs of Masterchef from the confines of your bedroom—curled on your side, safely in pyjamas—because neither of your parents can go ten minutes without asking you about ‘what’s next’. What’s the plan, then? Why didn’t you take more time to think it over?

They’ll be asleep soon. Then you can finally venture out to make some food undisturbed. 

There’s that feeling again, the sinking, you’re living like you’re a teenager, feeling. Hiding out in your room, dodging questions about the future. God, how quick you’ve regressed. The home hasn’t changed, but it’s dragged you down with it. If you look out your window, the tire swing might have magically re-appeared, swaying in the dark. 

Your phone buzzes under your arm, so you twist your head to read the sender’s name and find it’s Angel. It always is lately. 

Keep me awake, please, he says.

You uncurl, stretching onto your back and resting your hands and phone on your stomach to type, Why? You in a meeting?

His reply is quick. He’s like that, you’ve realised, impossible to get answers from in the day, but fast as anything once the sun’s gone down. It reads, Gotta keep watch on somethin. Then, You know we don’t have phones in meetings.

Oh, yeah. He had told you that. You sigh. Am I enabling a crime, Angel? 

Sure, keep doing that.

Doing what?

Being annoying, he says, makes it real hard to fall asleep. 

You laugh, just once through your nose, and let your gaze drift from the phone screen to the TV on the wall opposite. The contestant’s Panna cotta hasn’t set in time, a fatal mistake, you imagine, from the colour of pink his face has gone. 

The phone vibrates with a new message. 

Okay, I take it back. Then another. Not annoying.

You answer quickly, saving him from overthinking any more silences. Relax, tontín, I was watching TV. Annoying you is a favourite hobby of mine.

He reads it, but sends nothing back. You return to the ham-pink chef and his melting dessert. 

After a minute or two of nothing, you get a text that says, Will you be up in a couple hours?

You blink a few times, like that’s a test that will provide any sort of answers, before replying, Up? Yes. Sociable? No. 

Wanna come to mine? I can pick you up on the way.

Wow, you say it aloud as you type it. Wow. So this is what it’s like to be a target of Angel Reyes.

There’s a small typing bubble that comes up, then stops and disappears, and then the same again. And again. Then, finally, a message makes it from his keyboard to your screen. If you don’t want to, you can just say no, it says. Don’t make it weird.

You feel a flash of heat up your neck, right behind the ears. Embarrassment. Sorry. You hit send. Sure. Send. Sounds good.

Cool. You stare at the screen until he says something else. Tell me about your show, then. I’m bored as fuck here.

-----

You wake to a relentless buzzing against your chest. It vibrates through your ribcage, pulling you from the sleep you don’t remember falling into. It’s not sudden, but a slow crawl back to consciousness, disorientating and delayed. The light of the screen blinds as you eventually turn it to your face, ANGELITO screaming at you from the caller ID, until you hit answer and put it to your ear. When you close your eyes again, the name flashes against the black of your lids. Burnt into your vision.

‘Hello?’ you manage, croaking through the haze.

‘I’m outside, biche.’

It takes you a second to realise who it is, and what he’s expecting. ‘Oh fuck.’ You pull the phone from your face to check the time. Midnight, six minutes past. ‘I fell asleep,’ you sigh back into the handset.

He clears his throat on the other end. ‘I figured. Want me to go?’

Your lids are drooping, head sinking further in the dent already pressed into your pillow. ‘Mmm,’ you hum. ‘No.’

‘Are you falling asleep again?’

‘No.’ You yawn. ‘I’m awake.’

‘Liar.’ You hear the rumble of his engine starting up through the phone, and through the window, too. You’re awake enough to hear that now; you’d missed his arrival entirely. ‘I’ll catch you another time,’ he says.

And he sounds disappointed enough to make you reply, ‘Just come in.’

A pause. ‘What?’

‘Yeah.’ You’ve said it now, you may as well go with it. It’s only Angel. 'But be quiet about it,’ you add. 

He laughs. ‘Be quiet about what? You not gonna let me in?’

You could, but, well, you’re letting laziness win for once. ‘Window's open.’

It’s still while he deliberates, minus the low-rolling of his motorbike, then the engine switches off, definitively, and you hear him say, ‘Shit, alright. Fuck it,’ before the line goes dead. 

You take that as your cue to sit upright and wipe the sleep from your eyes. 

A minute later and Angel’s shimmying your window up to allow a gap big enough to climb through, which he does surprisingly well. He makes it into the house, into your room, without too much catastrophe—a surprise given his frame, and his legs that go on and on— and it’s only once he’s standing upright again, that he causes any sort of disturbance. When he reaches back to shut the window, he knocks the lamp from your bedside in the process, and its wire sweeps all the shit cluttering the top of it onto the floor. 

He throws you a look, half apology, half stifled laughter of someone who shouldn’t be laughing at all, but it’s an expression you know you’re mirroring. He caught the lamp, at least. That wouldn’t survive the way moisturiser and broken phone chargers would. 

‘It’s fine,’ you tell him, allowing a sleep-sodden smile to poke through. ‘My own fault for being messy.’

He sets the lamp down, tunnelled light swinging across the ceiling until it stills. ‘Can’t believe you got me sneaking into your house like a fucking kid.’

‘Just be glad it’s not a three-story mansion.’

He laughs, then takes a sweep of your room in a shameless way. You know what he’s noticing; boxes, more boxes, clothes you can’t put away because the drawers are too small, shoes on top of shoes, and flat-packed furniture with no place to go. There’s only one clear space of floor in the room and he’s occupying it, the runway from door to bed.

He looks back at you like he’s about to comment on it. His arms are limp by his sides, his kutte looks copper from the glow of your lamp. The longer the silence sits, the more awkward he looks, out of place and out of character, and it’s creeping its way across to you. This is weird, it says, isn’t this strange? 

Before the idea can settle, you move sideways to sit against the wall, across the bed rather than straight down it, and bend your legs to leave him two thirds of the mattress to take. Unless he wants to sit on the boxes you haven’t, and probably won’t ever unpack, this is as much as you can offer as host.

‘Sorry, it’s the bed or the floor,’ you say.

The bed wins. He comes to life again, relieved by the invite, and flops down, back to the headboard, ass to your pillow—of all things. When he goes to lift his feet onto the comforter, you say ‘boots’ as a warning and he forces them off, laces still tied, before settling in properly. His legs stretch out, knees in line with the socked-toes of your feet. 

  ‘This what you’re watching?’ he asks, eyes quick to find the TV. ‘Teleshopping?’

‘It just came on.’ You reach across him, for the remote beside your pillow, and click down a channel. Some western film croaks back at you instead. 'How was your night?’ 

‘Boring as hell.’ He sulks. ‘Didn’t even get to fuck somebody up.’

‘You’re right, that sounds terrible.’

His head shakes, slow and exaggerated. ‘All that waiting around for nothing.’

You laugh, rubbing at your eyes like that’ll keep the sleep away. Even with him in here, you’re fighting off yawns, biting them back between conversation. ‘I don’t even know if you’re joking anymore.’ 

‘Ah, you don’t wanna know.’ He interlocks his fingers over his chest, somehow finding a way to look even more comfortable, then nods in your direction. ‘Besides, could’ve been here watching you snore. Way better use of an evening.’

You frown, recoiling slightly. Your skull hits the wall behind. ‘I don’t snore.’

His brow curves up. ‘Wanna bet?’

‘No.’ He’d lose. You hope.

‘Cause you’ll be doing it any minute now.’

‘I’m awake,’ you insist, pushing his knee with your foot. 

‘Yeah,’ he laughs, ‘and I’m fucking Jesus Christ.’

‘Good for him,’ you reply, before finally letting a yawn win its battle with your teeth. 

‘What?’

Of course, the joke went over his head with the glow of the TV. It flickers onto the wall behind him. ‘Don’t worry,’ you say, sliding sideways until you’re lying against the second pillow, your arm bent under your cheek so you can look at him still. ‘I’ll be funnier tomorrow.’

He puts a strange glance in your direction, but decides to leave it. ‘What’s got you so tired?’ he asks. ‘Thought you worked some boring office job?’

Great. ‘I do. I did.’

A pause. 

You sigh, hot air puffing over your elbow. ‘I quit yesterday.’ He says, what, why?, but you talk over him. ‘And then I felt so scared I’d made the wrong decision, that I stayed up all night applying for new jobs.’

He snorts. ‘Sounds real rational, carnale.’

'I know. I fucked up.’

‘Nah,’ he says, head shaking minutely, ‘so what? You’ll get another job. Something with less filing and shit.’

The way he says it makes you almost believe him, like it really could be as simple as that. ‘You don’t think I should’ve stuck it out?’ you ask, looking at the point where his jeans meet the crease in your bedding. Though, in the half-light of the room, it’s hard to tell where Angel ends and the bed begins.

He shrugs; you catch the drop of his shoulders as they come down again. ‘You lasted longer than I would.’

You laugh weakly, then the sound folds into a groan. You push your face into the pillow to smother it. 

‘It’ll be okay.’ He sighs. ‘Honestly. Shit could be a lot worse than quitting your job.’

‘I hope so.’ You turn back to him, then to the TV. ‘I’ve no idea what to do about it, tontín.’

He sighs, and slouches, then shifts completely, bouncing himself down so that he can lie parallel to you, with his arms folded behind his head. ‘Well,’ he starts, and you’re suddenly aware of how quietly you’re both talking, how softly it rolls between you, ‘what d’you wanna do about it?’

Silence. The movie fills enough of it to make it comfortable. 

‘Is it bad that I don’t know?’

He laughs, ‘No,’ and tilts his face to give you an exasperated look. ‘You think I know what I'm doing with my life?’

‘Yeah, actually, I do. You have a purpose, shady as it is.’

‘Which is not very,’ he adds.

‘Still. You know where you’re going and what you’re good at. I’ve been looking for that since college and…God.’ You feel yourself wilt. The rest of your complaint puffs out of you as empty air, a hopeless sigh. ‘Whatever.’

You can feel him staring at the side of your face. You watch the cowboys on TV like you’ve no idea he’s doing it. 

‘You’ll figure it out,’ he says eventually, nudging you with his elbow, ‘but if you don’t, who cares? Life’s too fucked up to worry about this shit. Just say fuck it and do what you want.’

‘Fuck it,’ you repeat blankly. 

‘Fuck it,’ he agrees. ‘And you can quote me on that.’

You snort. Dumb as it is, his approach to problem solving has soothed you in a way your parents could never. Either that, or you’re so tired that he’s started sounding wise. It helps, regardless, and you’re suddenly very glad that your mouth decided to invite him in before your brain could turn you against the idea. 

If he was closer, you might drop your head onto his shoulder. You settle for putting your hand over his instead. 

‘Thanks, Angel.’

He lifts his thumb to squeeze your fingers briefly. Then that silence returns and after a while, you feel your eyelids drop, and the pillow is just in the absolute right place, at the right angle, and he’s so warm it pours off him, honey into hot tea, drawing you in, away from conversation and floating. Floating.

‘It’s my kid,’ he says, and you might have dreamt it.

But you think, what? No, you say, ‘What?’

He repeats it. ‘It’s my kid. On the lock screen.’

You drag your eyes open. He has his phone out, propped up on his chest and shining blue-light against his features. 

‘Okay.’ You swallow once, pushing the sleep back into your throat. ‘Is he…?’ 

You don’t know what you’re asking. Angel answers like he does. 

‘He’s with his mom,’ he says, voice taut and uneven. ‘I haven’t met him yet.’

Your hand is still over his. If you pull it back now, it’ll mean something you don’t intend it to mean. If you push your fingers through his, that’ll do the same thing. You stare at them instead, unmoving on the bed between you, and try to find a reasonable response to his confession. 

His kid. You'd made the same assumption yourself, but it’d been easy to ignore without him saying it out lout. There was always the chance, somewhere, that it was a cousin, or a nephew. EZ being a father seemed more palatable somehow.

Angel’s gaze finds yours. Half his face is shadowed, his nose blocking the light from his phone. ‘You gonna say something?’ 

‘I’m thinking.’ Now’s your opportunity; you move your hand to your face without it meaning anything at all and use it to scrub at your eyes, before pushing it up and over your hair. The motions leave you more awake than before, but only just. ‘I can’t believe you let me complain about my shit, when you…’

God. You roll onto your back to stare at the ceiling. Things really can be worse than quitting your job.

‘I’m sorry,’ you say, sighing afterwards. ‘I don’t know what to say. I mean, are you, will you—’

‘It’s real fucking complicated, biche.’ He looks up too. The flashing from the TV bounces against your chins. His phone falls face down onto his chest. ‘I want to. Shit, I’d have him home with me if I could, but it ain’t that easy.’

You can tell from the way he says it that this shit goes into the same category as club business does. The category of things he can only say so much on, information that you’ll get when he gives it, and no sooner than he can afford to. It leaves you in a limbo you can’t seem to think a way out of. You can’t find words of comfort, if you don’t know where the wound lies.

‘The mom,’ you say, carefully, ‘you aren’t together?’

He shakes his head, his hair making a brushing noise against the pillow beneath it. 

‘Do you want to be?’

It’s quiet while he thinks, and you’re so conscious of the volume of your breathing that you attempt to still it. Long breath after long breath, through the nose. You aren’t nervous. You aren’t asking to be intrusive. This is what friends do, this is how you help.

‘I just want to see my kid,’ he says. ‘Right now, I don’t even feel like a fucking dad.’

You nod, he carries on.

‘It wasn’t meant to be like this, y’know? I wanted to…’ A pause. A breath. ‘Maybe I was being stupid. Fucking hopeful when I shouldn’t have been.'

This time, when you get the urge to move across and put your head to his shoulder, you listen. Your cheek presses against the leather there. You watch his chest rise and fall, in and out of your eye-line, in sync with your own breaths.

‘I don’t think it’s ever stupid to hope for something you want, Angel.’  

He exhales; you don’t know if it’s a frustrated sigh, or a push of relief. 

‘You’ll be a good dad,’ you say. And you think about adding, you already are, but it stays behind your lips, waiting. 

>>>>> part four