#maybe it is because he spent most of his days in colombia

[chaotic-iguana]

Javi p x reader where ummm uhhh he is gone for long trip (post Columbia, where they’re on the ranch and his new job occasionally has to travel) and reader wears his clothes bc they miss him/clothes smell like him and javi comes home early to reader in his clothes and he’s like oh my goddd ur sooo cute and he just scoops reader up and idk it is cute

yes. this is the prompt. thank you anon sending you forehead kisses for life.

Away

Summary: Javier’s gone on a trip, and you just can’t help but miss him. lots of fluff. im a SLAVE for soft javi negl.

Wordcount: 1.4k

Pairing: Javier Peña x female! reader

Warnings: just a lot of domestic fluff and a little angst. some kissing and slightly suggestive language towards the end. also a little bit of swearing too. let me know if this works, anon!

masterlist. ao3.

part 2

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Even the coffee didn’t taste the same when he wasn’t here. Laredo had been perfect, a much required (and welcome) change in pace after Colombia. You’d met Javi working as an assistant of the Ambassador, practically detesting him at first. 

He’d sauntered into your office, batted his lashes at you (no, seriously), complimented your nails, and just oh-so-casually asked you to get him some paperwork he had absolutely no business looking at. So you’d just clicked your pretty nails (his words) in his face and told him to get the fuck out and come back when you’ve got your head out of your ass. 

Two weeks later, he’d just shown up again - sheepish, with proper coffee as a bribe this time - and asked for ten minutes with your boss. Impressed by his newly-discovered manners, you’d gotten him twenty minutes with the guy and helped sway him into authorizing a mission the Ambassador normally wouldn’t even have looked at. 

The next morning, there’d been flowers on your desk with a little note scrawled in chickenscratch. Thank you, hermosa. Sorry for being an ass last time. I like the new nails too, maybe you could show them to me up close sometime? You’d exaggeratedly rolled your eyes and thrown the note in the trash, of course, but you couldn’t quite keep the grin off your face that whole week. Nor the week after that, when he took you out, and you did, in fact, give him a fully immersive tactileexperience of that new set of acrylics you’d gotten before the note. 

Soon, the arrangement evolved from just sex to practically living together. You never spoke about it; Javi just had a closet in your home and his toothbrush in your bathroom. You went out for anniversary dinners without calling them anniversary dinners; flowers and coffee kept mysteriously showing up at your desk; and his informants started getting paid more and fucked less. By the time Javi left the DEA for good, you both had spent too many years by each other’s sides to change the routine. So the apartment was packed up, tickets to Laredo were brought, and you’d just followed him down here. 

It was like just breathing Laredo air was enough to change the man. He’d asked you to marry him practically a week after you met Chucho, who had welcomed you with open arms. Obviously, you said yes, and you lived happily ever. Or as close to it as you could get with his work stealing him away most of the time. It made you laugh, the way you were still waiting on him to come back from his trips - but atleast they weren’t to Bogota anymore; your heart stuck in your throat the whole time he was away because what if he didn’t come back? 

No, now that fear had long-faded - and though it flared up at times - a pathetic yearning took its place. Instead of being worried about Javi, you missed him when he was gone, counting down the days like a kid at summer camp waiting to go home. And in a way, you were waiting for your home too. 

You loved Chucho, and Laredo, and your new job and all the comforts life had given you here, but the apartment just felt cold and empty when Javi wasn’t next to you. Waking you up with slow, languid kisses in the morning, laughing when you grumbled and rolled over - only to tickle you awake, instead. That cocky grin he got when he realised you were too short to reach something, coming up behind you to pull it down and immediately kissing your forehead because of course you were struggling and of course you were too stubborn to ask him for help. The tough poker face he put on before making one of those witty quips that made you laugh until there were tears in your eyes and you couldn’t stop giggling because it was so ridiculous. 

His laugh, his kisses, his smell and his warmth - you missed all of it so fucking much - but you’d never so much as indicate that to him, of course. It was something you’d promised yourself back when the two of you were just a newly-transferred secretary and a DEA agent who might have happened to be in the same bar a few too many times on weekends; you never wanted to make it harder for him to leave, to make him feel like he had to choose between you and his job. 

Today, you felt his lack of presence a bit more than normal; it was a day off and you had nothing to do. You and Javi would have spent half the day lounging on the couch and watching terrible movies, taking turns to put on quirky voices for scathing commentaries, ordered takeout and gotten into bed. To either sleep like the dead or get no sleep at all, depending on the mood. 

You could go out, but you just didn’t want to meet people right now. You’d had dinner with Chucho a few days ago, which meant you couldn’t just show up at the ranch unannounced and say you’re bored, either. Not that he would mind, but he’d spent the day showing you how to make tamales and that had understandably thrown his work schedule off a bit and you didn’t want to make it worse. 

So you showered and pulled out one of Javi’s sleep shirts and boxers, reveling in their comfort before curling up on the bed. You were flicking through the channels, bored out of your mind, when suddenly there was a knock on the door. “Cariño? It’s me.” The second his voice came from the other side, you were stumbling across the room to unlock the door and wrench it open. Beaming, you barely got to look at him before he was bursting through, throwing his bag down and he’d just scooped you up into his arms with practiced ease. 

Walking you to the bed, he set you down gently before manoevring you both so that you were in his lap. Tugging at the hem of his shirt, his smile widened. “What’s this, hm?” A teasing tone crept into his voice as you flushed and looked away, biting your lip. You didn’t show affection easily, and you’d never worn any of his shirts before - scared of coming off as too needy, too clingy - even when you were married to the man, for god’s sake. 

Watching you blush, Javi tilted your chin to make you look at him as his lips twisted into a smirk, leaning in to pepper kisses all over your face and giving you reprieve only when you squealed, pushing at his chest while giggling uncontrollably. “Did you miss me, honey?” Your shy nod just made him chuckle, gripping your chin to pull you into a deep, open-mouthed kiss. “You’re fuckin’ adorable, you know that? Walking around wearing my clothes when I’m not around - refusing to admit you missed me when I heard you trip on your way to the door.” The twinkle in his eye is only getting brighter with each word, and you’re struggling to meet his eye by the end of it. You knew he found it amusing - the fact that your usually foul-mouthed, unyielding nature; the woman who hadclicked her nails in his fucking face the first time they’d met - melted away to become all shy and flustered, just for him. 

“Don’t laugh” you huff, burying your face in his neck to avoid meeting his eye because that was honestly just making your blush deeper. He just snickers again, the asshole, before kissing your forehead and mumbling softly. 

“‘Course not, sweetheart. Hated being away, y’know? ‘N then I got home, and you just looked so cute in my shirt dwarfing you that I jus’ couldn’t help myself.” You leaned back, with a teasing grin of your own. 

“Couldn’t help yourself? Sounds like you’ve gotta make up for laughing at your poor wife now, Mr Peña.” You peered up at him through your lashes, watching him catch on with widened eyes before fumbling with the buttons on his shirt and pulling it over his head, hurling it to the floor next to him. 

“Come on then, wife. Let’s make amends, huh?”

hello loves, as always - thank you for reading. comment your thoughts or find me on ao3. stay hydrated and have a great day! taglist: @imherefordeanandbones @theywhowriteandknowthings

[creedslove]

DESERVE IT - CHAPTER 17

Javier Peña x f!reader

Summary: Things go a lot better than Javier had predicted in Washington, but it's time to leave Colombia behind and go home, at the same time you can't leave Colombia, which makes you take a risky decision

Warnings: angst, sad!Javi, incorrect narcos plot, mentions of masturbation, smut (phone sex hihihi), dirty talk, sad!reader, an old character returns, fluff

A/N: I'm not gonna say much as I'm very tired because I just finished this chapter and I wrote A LOT today, but I loved this chapter, I feel I wrote my heart into this chapter and I hope you besties enjoy it as much as I did

• PART ONE TO SIXTEEN ON MY MASTERLIST

5.6k words

"¡Por fin, cayó!" 

Javier's heart sank when he heard these words through the TV. It was his fourth or fifth scotch, he had already lost track of it, as there was nothing else to do in that place other than get drunk and worry about what the future held for him. His meeting with the board would be in two days, and Javi had received no other instruction besides a warning not to leave town. He didn't know if he would have to get himself a lawyer, maybe he should have already done it, the interview with Judy Moncada hit like a bomb and the media was pressing the American government which pressed the DEA and it became a vicious circle. It actually came in handy as the investigations around Escobar's location tightened and as far as Javi had heard, they were very close to catching him. He looked around the shady bar he was in and saw a few beautiful women having their drinks. If it were at any other moment of his life, he would approach some of them with his charm and woo them to bed. 

But that was before you. 

Now, even if he tried picking up a girl on purpose, he wouldn't be able to do it, you had put him under a spell, you were the only one who crossed his mind at all times of the day, your face was the last thing he saw before falling asleep and the first thing to appear when he woke up. His heart raced to think of you, the moments you two spent together, the way you'd smile at him, kiss his lips, how your laughter was his favorite sound in the world - second favorite, as the first one had to be your moans - and the way your face lit up when he proposed to you, how you'd said yes without even thinking and when he officially got on his knees and gave you the ring, you teared up and said yes once again, because that would always be your answer to him.

He also deeply missed your body, he had memorized your curves, your freckles and your weak spots. Night after night he fucked his own fist thinking of you, it wasn't enough, it didn't compare to actually having you there, it offered him such a bittersweet relief because once the bliss of his orgasm faded, he turned to an empty spot in his bed. It lacked your warmth, your smell, your body. He missed holding you, he missed how you'd run your fingers through his hair, how you'd sit on his lap to have breakfast. Even if he wrote to you, called you, heard your voice, it wasn't the same. He could spend hours on the phone talking to you, and it wouldn't be enough, as soon as you hung up the emptiness he felt returned at full intensity. 

Javier had never felt like that for any woman, but he felt that for you, he was sure he was under your spell, but he never wanted to break free from it. 

However, at that moment Javier's heart was broken; he couldn't believe that after so many years of dedication and hard work he'd missed the capture and killing of the most wanted man in the world. After so much he'd given to the government and to Colombia, he had been forced to watch it from afar, as his entire career was going to be decided by a bunch of suited men who never raised their asses of their comfortable cushioned chairs and taken a look at what the real world of drugs was like.

Javi finished his liquor and paid for it, placing his jacket back on and heading towards the end. He wanted to call you, he wanted to hear your voice and make sure you were alright. That night was just one of those nights where the pang in his chest was too intense, he missed you to the point it felt like his skin burned. Truth to be told, he didn't want to call you over the phone, he wanted to have you there, with him, sharing a bed, sleeping together, kissing and fucking. He craved your presence and your body, but for that moment, a telephone call would be the closest he would get from you. However, he would call you from his hotel room, he wanted privacy to talk to you, he needed the comfort of a bed, a pillow under his head so he could pretend things were okay again. Where he'd close his eyes while you spoke with your sweet, gentle voice and he could pretend you were just a room away from him, taking long in the bathroom for instance, before you would appear wearing nothing but his shirt just for him.

At that moment, there was another call Javier had to make, so he searched his pickets to find some coins he could use in the phone booth. He needed to get a hold of Steve in order to know everything about Pablo's death. He'd seen it through the tv but it was obvious it wasn't the same as witnessing history writing itself. You could offer him some juicy details in a few weeks, once you worked on your reports to send it over to the government, then you'd be organizing your own report, based on the cops' reports and accounts who took part in the mission, just as the necropsy reports too. 

All in all, you would have a ton shit of work and you would have to compile probably thousands of pages, to the point Messina would probably have to send over a team of people to help you. Peña knew how stressed you were, about the whole Pablo Escobar and about his own situation as well. He hated that he caused you to stress over what was probably going to happen to him, and if he could, he would abduct you from that chaotic life and take you to his ranch, so you two could get married and live your life in peace. He got lost in his thoughts that were all about you and nearly forgot what he was doing when Steve's voice was heard on the other side of the line. 

After Javi had the confirmation he would have to go to Washington, he'd had a conversation with Steve and the two of them apologized to each other and went back to being friends, under the condition imposed by Javier: Murphy would have to take care of you while Javi was gone. 

He skipped the usual greetings and went straight for the account of what happened the day they caught Escobar, not sparing any details; he told Javier everything that happened that day until they took the infamous photograph of Escobar's dead body. 

The burning feeling of jealousy and envy took over Javi's body even if he fought them as hard as he could, he couldn't believe himself when he felt that, he should be happy, his friend managed to catch Colombia's boogeyman and they probably made things a little bit better to the world, and yet there he was, standing inside of a phone booth sulking like a teenage girl because he couldn't be a part of it. It was pathetic and he felt ridiculous, but he also felt he deserved to be there, he'd given so much of himself to that, and he deserved to have shot Escobar at least once. 

"So, how's Y/N doing?" Javi asked after Steve finished narrating his part of the story, after all, you were still the most important thing that lingered on his mind the entire time, he heard Steve's sigh and felt his heart clench. 

"You know… she's doing alright, she's strong, she's been working a lot, Connie talks to her everyday and well, she misses you and she's worried, but she knows the two of you need to be patient" he told his friend "and for her sake, I also hope you are keeping your dick in your pants, Javi" 

Javier laughed as he could hear the smirk in his friend's voice and ran his thumb over his eyebrow "fuck you Murphy" he said before hanging up. 

Javi lit up a cigarette - because he avoided smoking them around you, as he didn't want you to breathe his smoke, but now he was away from you he felt miserable and he figured he deserved at least a puff - and walked back to his hotel. 

He was gonna lie in his bed, call you and give zero fucks about how expensive long-distance calls were and pretend he didn't hear your voice breaking while you tried to hold your tears at the same time you pretended you didn't cry whenever you talked about him and the uncertainty of your future together. 

                            •••

Javier licked his lips as he tensely walked through the hallway. He didn't know what was going to happen to him, but he knew it wasn't good. Just two days before, he had called Steve wanting to know everything about Pablo Escobar's death. It'd been a few days since the task force formed by the DEA, CIA and the Colombian police managed to take down the most wanted man in the world. 

Even if Javier still felt bitter about it, he was also relieved to see each time he grabbed a newspaper or he tuned into the news channel, the DEA scandal about a long term agent associating with a death squad was replaced by the joy and glory of the US government of having ended the kingdom of terror of Escobar. As he placed his fingers between his tie and his neck, pulling them a little in order to create some space and subdue the feeling of being suffocated, that's all he tried keeping in mind as nervousness flooded through him. He was about to have his life decided, he could be fired, go to jail, go back as if nothing had happened, and the fact he had absolutely no clue which turn his life would take was nerve-wracking.

He was told to get inside the conference room by a very rude secretary and rolled his eyes. She had no idea who she was talking to, he was Javier Peña, former charmer of secretaries. If he hadn't been tamed by a gorgeous girl back in Colombia he would make sure to lean towards her desk and work his charms on her until she was giggling and blushing only to invite her for a few drinks and after fucking her, leave her in bed. Javier was a gentleman and he didn't think doing that to women was alright, but under those circumstances he figured an entitled bitch like that deserved it. He chuckled to himself at the realization you were the only one he would love to invite for some drinks, take to bed but instead of leaving in the morning, he'd make sure to hold you tight the whole night, so he'd wake up with you. It ached to think of the distance between the two of you, so he just sat down and gulped, tense to know what was going to happen.

He nervously tapped his fingers on the table as a group of suited men walked into the room and took the chairs in front of him. 

With no introductions or whatsoever, one of the men grabbed a file and read out loud the report about Pablo Escobar's death. It highlighted all the positive enforcement the american government received and how positive it was for their image, Javier breathed heavily and shifted uncomfortably on his seat, staring at the man and having absolutely no clue why he was blabbering about that at all.

"Do I need a lawyer?" He asked and saw as the other members of the board laughed softly. 

"Agent Peña, a lawyer is not required for the occasion. You see, morale was hanging low once Miami Herald published that controversial interview, causing us a series of inconveniences, hence why you've been called here. However, as your team managed to catch Escobar, things changed, and we are all willing to forget about your… incident, let's put it that way, with Los Pepes" anyone could see the relief in Javier, as his shoulders immediately relaxed and the tension slowly floated away, he knew it was too soon to celebrate but thing we're going way better than he anticipated. 

"Still… after a long conversation with our Ambassador in Colombia, we came to the conclusion you need to take some time off from the dangers of your job, so you are going to be permanently removed from the DEA.." 

"Am I being forced to retire or are you trying to kick me out?" Javi asked confused and slightly angry, he didn't like the insinuations they were making. What were they thinking? That he wasn't good enough for his job anymore or that he was getting too old?

"Excuse me, agent Peña…" another member of the board interrupted and glanced at his colleague and then back at him "you shouldn't see this as retirement, it is just a paid leave, a privilege really, and it has the duration of a year, after that you can choose if you'd like to go back to the field, or if you'd prefer to get a desk job, and if you take a liking on the easy life you can officially retire. Don't make a fuss out of it, agent… It is already much better than what would happen if Escobar hadn't been caught. You could be heading to jail instead of getting permanent paid vacation… it's just a small thank you as we all know that off the record, your association with that group was what really enabled our men to catch Escobar" 

Before Javier could say anything about it, the men got up and exited the room, leaving him there dumbfounded and too shocked to say the least. 

                       •••

"So technically you are on paid vacation for a whole year?" You asked as you held the phone against your ear and took off your shoes, getting comfortable in bed and watching your reflection in the mirror as you lay comfortably against the mattress. You had been staying in Javi's apartment ever since he had to leave; it just felt like the most logical decision as your own place never really felt like home and by staying at Javi's you felt somewhat closer to him. 

"Yeah, that's what it seems like, I still don't know if they'll take my badge and gun, but I guess I won't be using them very much… but enough talking about that, it's good enough I'm not going to jail" he smiled sadly as he tried picturing you on the other side of the line, his body aching for yours at the same time you felt emotional, Javi had already told you everything that happened with details at least twice and you still asked questions just to double check it, even if it was an annoying habit you couldn't help but do it again and again just to make sure it was real and not just a sweet dream, your spent weeks fearing having your fiance taken to jail and now you were so relieved to know he would get paid to stay home. Of course Javier's pride was probably hurt and he felt bad about being removed from the job he dedicated himself to for the past years of his life, but after everything that went on with the hunt of Escobar and Judy Moncada's interview you were more than thankful he was actually being paid not to work. Not only that, but you knew it would do Javi good to be able to step away from the stress, the rush, the violence and the constant danger. You weren't an agent and you didn't work in the field and you felt you were often emotionally exhausted, so you couldn't even imagine how tired Javi must've felt. 

"And I'm guessing you can't come back to Colombia… So are you going home?" 

"Yeah, the board strongly advised me to avoid Colombia for now, and well, I'm going to Laredo, gonna see pa, check the things on the ranch… and I was hoping you could come? Maybe meet me there?" He suggested and your heart clenched, as you could picture perfectly the puppy look in his eyes as he asked you. You wanted to say yes, you wanted to scream yes to him, you wanted to tell him you would pack your things and fly in the first flight to Texas you could find and then later Steve and Connie could ship the rest of your things. 

You wanted to tell him to wait for you at night because you would wear his favorite lingerie and that you could even get married if he wanted to, but instead, you sighed sadly as you felt your eyes watering and you tried your best so your voice wouldn't break and it wouldn't make Javi feel worse than he did before. 

"I-I can't. I really want to, I can't wait Javi, sometimes I even dream of being in Laredo with you, even if I haven't been there, but I dream of us, of the family we'll build… but Messina told me it will take us from three to six months to finish the Escobar case paperwork" you said sadly knowing your heart would shatter if you heard the disappointment in his voice. 

"It's alright" he said and there it was, the disappointment in his voice. He wasn't sad or angry with you, of course, but it felt like everything and everyone was against the two of you. For once, there was nothing Javier wanted more than to settle down with you and yet, it seemed everyone betted against it. "We will figure something else… I just miss you, cariño and I wish I could be there with you… or even better, I wish you could be here with me" he licked his lips and told you about how he had booked a flight for the next day so he could go back to his hometown and you smiled, trying to entertain yourself and not think of how unfair it was that you and Javi were kept apart like that. You sighed sadly but then you had an idea that could cheer the two of you up, you bit your lips, giggling softly. 

"Javi?" You purred onto the phone knowing it certainly would draw his attention "what are you wearing?" You chuckled 

"What?" He asked confused at first but getting what you meant almost instantly "what are you trying to do, princesa? ¿Quieres portarte como una puta?" 

"Si Javi, siempre para tí" you replied chuckling "well, if you are gonna take too long, then I'll start… I'm wearing your shit, that blue one, you know? I got off shower a while ago and I just put the shirt on… with nothing underneath it" 

"Fuck cariño, you are such a tease… you are trying to get into my pants, princesa?" He loved how you chuckled, he could picture your beautiful face, your body and the expectation of his touch. 

"You haven't answered me yet, Peña" he could even picture your small frown as you called him by his last name. Javi laughed softly 

"Well, I am wearing my jeans and that's all… why? What do you want now, Y/N?" 

"Um… I like that Javi… you're holding the phone with your left hand, aren't you? Well, then where is your right hand placed?" Javier stroked his eyebrow with the tip of his thumb as he heard your voice 

"It's on my forehead, why?" 

"Because I want you to run your hand down your chest, Javi… down your stomach too, and get to your zipper, just as if it was my hand instead of yours, get it?" 

Javi felt a spike of lust at your words. You often didn't give him orders, it was usually Javi who took the lead, but for some reason that side of you pleased him, and he gladly obeyed, getting to his zipper and gently tugging the button of his jeans. 

"Done cariño… it doesn't compare to your hand, the real deal is way better, but I'm willing to know what else you want" 

"Go ahead Javi, mi amor, open your fly… free your cock, I miss it so much" you said "I miss it how big and thick you are Javi, how you would stretch me real good, I miss you cumming inside of me, your hot cum deep inside my womb, how I would convulse and milk you dry, I miss you, te extraño tanto, amor" you whispered "are you hard, Javi?" you earned a grunt as a response "of course you are, you're always hard for me, aren't you Javi? I fucking love it"

"Always hard for you, baby, you're the only one who owns this cock" Javi's submission warmed your core and it made your pussy clench at the thought of him. 

"Good Javi, me encanta saber eso" you purred, as he loved when you spoke Spanish to him "now, I want you to rub your thumb over your tip, okay? I bet it's already wet with your pre cum, isn't it?" 

"Sí, mi amor" he purred back at you and did as you told him, groaning in pleasure as his tip was so sensitive. 

"Good Javi… now I want you to wrap your hand around your cock and rub yourself up and down okay? Can you touch yourself for me, Javi?" He whispered a small yes as he wrapped his hand around himself and fucked his fist for you. He thought of you, your lips, your cunt, your ass, all of it for him, all the times you brought him pleasure and couldn't hold back any longer, he came, making a mess on his hand, his stomach and a little bit on his sheet. 

You were so glad to have made him feel good and you two ended the call by exchanging love words. Despite the distance, nothing had changed and you two were going strong, because your love was strong. 

                      •••

Another week had passed and things hadn't changed much for you. For Javi, on the other hand, things had changed a lot. He'd returned to Laredo and made sure to tell you every single part of his adventure, because it was an adventure to him. After being away from home for so many years, he came back as some kind of bizarre local superstar. Everyone he knew - and people he didn't know - stopped him to congratulate him on the services for the country, at the same time old girlfriends stared, glanced, frowned, whispered about him and some even threw their charms. 

But your absolutely favorite situation that embarrassed Javier Peña to death: whenever an older woman came over to him and tried setting him up with a daughter, a niece or any other girl he had absolutely no intention of meeting. You always burst out laughing when Javi told you about these occasions, enjoying your amusement at how embarrassing those situations were for him. You would give anything to be there with him, to see how warm people from Laredo were when they saw your boyfriend and it made you proud to see he got the acknowledgement he deserved after working so hard. 

You were happy Javi was enjoying his time, apparently his relationship with his dad had improved some, he got to take care of his horses and you couldn't hold back your hormones at the mere thought of Javier as a cowboy. You could bet he looked every bit sexy like that and you often daydreamed about it. 

Because daydreaming about Javier was the only thing that made you happy, your job was a real torture, if you weren't happy before while you still had Javi by your side, now there wasn't even what to say about it. And when you got home it was worse, because you were welcomed by loneliness. And then in the morning, you would wake up and start it all over again. 

Even when you got dressed, you didn't find joy in anything as everything reminded you of Javi. The clothes you picked, the nail polish you wore, your engagement ring. It was a sweet reminder of your Javi, but also a bitter reminder he was home. 

You went to the office feeling bad like you usually did, you just had no will to do anything else, and you often wondered what the fuck you were still doing there. 

You were sat at your desk, stress already cooking up your brain as you could feel your headache forming, when someone stood next to you, but you were too distracted to notice. 

"Y/N?" You raised your head, shocked to hear that voice addressing you after so long 

"Manu?" You said looking at the man, who's smiled at you just like he did when you first met "c-can I help you with anything? I haven't finished the reports yet, but I can assist you" 

Manu shook his head and pulled a chair, sitting close to you and taking your hand, watching your engagement ring "I'm not here to talk about that, I'm here to talk about you and Javier… listen, I know shit went down between us and there was a time not too long ago I wanted to kill him and probably you too for hurting me" he sighed "but the anger I felt faded… and well, rumor has it Javier Peña proposed to you and judging by the size of this gem, I can tell Colleen was spreading the true story" Manu laughed at the sight of you  gritting your teeth to hear about Colleen. 

"But Javier isn't here anymore and I can see that you're sadder and sadder, and I don't like seeing you like that, Y/N… I know I shouldn't even care about you anymore, but I still do, and I know your heart belongs to someone else, but I also hate to see your light fading, you aren't happy here, and I also know you've been wanting to quit for a while…" for once this part of the gossip came from Steve, not Colleen, and you really didn't get why Murphy could be such a gossip girl sometimes "so, I just want you to know that I think you should do it, you should quit, hop on a plane and go after your happiness, because that's what I would do… of course I would like your happiness to be here with me, but I know it's Javier… it has always been him and there's no way I can compete with that" Manu offered you a sad smile and knew it was probably the last time he was seeing you, as he was sure you wouldn't be away from Javier for too long. 

You felt so touched by Manu's attitude, you didn't expect that from him at all, among all the people, he was the one who had all the reasons in the world to hate you and be glad to see you that upset, and yet, he offered you nothing but kindness to the point it made you feel ashamed and guilty for being such a shitty girlfriend to him, he definitely deserved it better, but as he had said himself, you couldn't be the one to give it to him. Once again you apologized to him for all the heartache you caused, knowing it would probably not gonna be enough, but it made your heart soothed if he knew you at least meant those words. 

You leaned in and hugged him, wishing him well because you also had the feeling that would be the last time you'd see him. 

The rest of the day wasn't much more than a blur to you: you ran late to your meeting at the embassy because of the chaotic traffic and Messina wasn't pleased about it. She'd been acting like a major bitch, which was odd as most represent of the government were nothing but smiles ever since Escobar was dead, and yet, she acted towards everybody like she could scold them like a fifth grade teacher over absolutely anything. It angered you and it was also one of the no Peña related reasons why you were so unmotivated about your job, and the fact that Manu's words wouldn't leave your mind and you couldn't quite focus on anything other than staring down at your engagement ring and fantasize about leaving everything behind didn't make things anything easy. 

"I'm sorry Y/N… did I say something funny?" Messina raised her eyebrow as she angrily addressed to you, snapping you out of your fantasies and making everyone in the room stare

"What?" You replied to her, having no clue what she was actually talking about.

"I wanted to know if you thought I had said something funny while we were revisiting the case because while everybody focused on the reports you were just smiling at yourself, it seems you don't care about your job" 

You stared at her for a while as you didn't say anything, letting her words sink and looking around the room, watching as the other people looked at you, everybody looking stressed and miserable while sweating uncomfortably because of the heat and you realized you didn't actually have to put up with that because you didn't actually care about that job and most importantly because you were just a flight away from being happy. 

"You're right, I don't care about this job at all, I don't care what page of the report you guys are, I don't care if there's a typo or if you didn't like the final result, in fact, I would like to quit and never come back here" he said throwing your papers onto her desk and walking out the room, feeling the sweet taste of freedom.

The rest of the day went a lot smooth than you thought. You just went back home, packed all your essentials in one big bag and then knocked on Steve's and Connie's door, to let them know you were flying to Texas. They were shocked at first and even thought you were joking, but when they realized you were dead serious, they made sure to assure you they'd take care of your stuff and send them over to you whenever you or Javi needed. Connie hugged you tight and made you promise you would visit, and you just giggled and told her they were already invited to the wedding.

The couple drove you to the airport and after giving you their goodbyes, you boarded on the plane, so happy to know in just a few hours you'd see Javi.

You flew overnight and got to Laredo in the morning, so excited to see Javi. It had been a surprise and if you had told Steve he shouldn't tell Javi where you were going, you didn't want to spoil things. 

When you first got to Laredo, you realized you didn't know where Javi's ranch was but you were so exhausted you couldn't even think straight. You realized you needed to sleep through your jetlag and calm down from all the emotional rollercoaster you went through. Not to mention the physical part that made your entire body sore. 

You found a small motel just a couple of blocks from the airport and decided to book a room for the day, - because you didn't plan to sleep there through the night - but much to your horror, the moment you placed your head against the pillow you simply passed out and only woke up in the evening. 

You were so disoriented you had forgotten for a split second where you were, but you jumped off the bed and went to the bathroom, showering and getting rid of all the sweat and tiredness and changing into one of Javi's favorite summer dresses. 

Then, you went to the reception and asked where the Peña ranch was, to which the young woman smiled and explained you the location.

"Forgive me, but I don't think Don Chucho and Javier are there now, tonight's Danny's wedding and pretty much the whole Laredo is gonna be there… I'm going there now myself as my shift has just ended" you nodded at her and remembered that Javi had indeed mentioned something about a wedding that week "but if you'd like, you could come with me? I'll give you a ride" 

                           •••

Javi had just talked to Lorraine and apologized to her again. It had been just a habit he got into over the past decade as guilt still consumed him every time he saw her. It didn't matter how many times she assured him she had forgiven her, he still felt guilty. 

He felt guilty because he knew you went through a very similar situation and he could kill the guy who made you go throught that, because he couldn't even imagine someone hurting you like that. 

When Lorraine talked about her family, Javi couldn't help but imagine his own, the one he would have with you in the future. He sighed as he got distracted from thinking of a beautiful little girl that looked like you as you had another bread in the oven and wore a golden ring around your finger and went back to his seat. Javi was good to go, but his dad was still eating and he didn't want to rush him.

He distractedly scanned the room and didn't notice when you came from behind, approaching him quietly and placing your delicate hands on his shoulders

"Would you like to dance, Javi?" You asked him, as he turned around feeling slightly mortified watching you stand there, just like he dreamed of for the last couple of weeks. 

_____

A/N: I hope you liked it besties, let me know what you think! ❤️

[garbinge]

What Friends Are For

Steve Murphy & Platonic!Reader (whose in a relationship with Javier Peña)

Day 17 from these April Prompts: “I’ve been wanting to ask her this for a long time but I just can’t work up the nerve to do it.” 

Summary: You call your friend to vent about Javi. 

Words: 1k

A/N: Just want to shoutout @drabbles-mc (not just for this fic but legit ALLLLL of these one’s i’ve been writing) but this was a little exchange I was inspired by her with! 

Warnings: Light angst! 

Narcos Taglist: @drabbles-mc @narcolini​ @justreblogginfics​

“I’ve been wanting to ask her this for a long time but I just can’t work up the fuckin’ nerve to do it.” Javi scratched his head as he paced in Steve’s new office. 

“Ask her what, Jav?” Steve wasn’t even sure if Javi was talking to him or himself at this point. 

“You know, the thing.” He waved his hand in response as his face wrinkled up in an annoyed way. 

“Oh right, the thing.” Steve’s eyebrows raised in sarcasm as he looked back down to his desk, giving up on whatever conversation Javi was or wasn’t having with him. 

“I should call her.” Javi stopped pacing now, still talking to himself. 

“Yea, call her.” Steve agreed, still looking down at his desk, starting to do actual work now. 

“Alright, yea, I’m gonna call her, thanks Murphy.” Javi quickly slapped his hand on Steve’s desk before retreating out of his office. 

“Anytime.” Murphy responded monotone before snapping his head up realized he just told Javi to call you. 

____________

The minute Steve answered the phone you began speaking, skipping pleasantries and greeting and jumping right into it. 

“It's bullshit.”

There was an immediate sigh on the other side of the phone. “What's bullshit?”

“That he can just come back into my life like nothing happened.”

Steve treaded carefully. “I mean from the last time we talked, nothing has happened.”

“Well, something happened, Murphy. Pena called me so something fuckin’ happened.” You didn’t take kindly to his previous response which is why you held an attitude right now.

Steve nodded his head and frowned. “Oh last names, that's how I know you're pissed.” He moved into the living room, removing the phone from his ear so he could untangle the cord it was connected to before sitting down on his recliner chair. 

“Yea, I’m pissed.” You said matter a factly. 

Steve chuckled, “You just caught one of the world's most dangerous men, who might I add we’ve been chasing for years, and you're pissed?”

You corrected him immediately. “I didn’t catch him. You and Trujillio did. I got benched.”

Steve paused for a minute, wrapping around the weight of what you said before rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You know you were just as much a part of that team as both of us.”

Now it was your turn to stay silent for a beat before speaking again. “But I wasn’t there.: 

Steve wasn’t going to try and convince you otherwise, “So now you're bitter and pissed.”

You plopped against the wall where your phone was with a defeated sigh. “Isn’t it funny that I call you to feel better? Yet every time I’m just more annoyed.”

“You think you’d learn.” Steve’s voice raised a pitch at the end of the sentence.

You let out a scoff, “Yea maybe one day.” After shaking your head for a minute you fell down against the wall so you were now sitting on the floor with your knees to your chest. “Hows Connie and Olivia?”

“They're good. They miss you, that's for sure.” Steve’s gaze moved over to his wife and adopted child. 

You nodded like he could see you through the phone. And in a way, he could. You had spent so much time in Colombia with Steve and Javi, hell even Connie that you all knew eachother like the back of your hands. Your mannerisms, your tones, your routines, it was all like muscle memory to you all. 

Steve broke the silence that over came the phone line. “Can I ask you something?”

“Que paso, Murphy?”

“Are you pissed because he did it or because he lied?”

It was a heavy question. You thought about it for a while. 

“I used to think it was because he lied. But I've realized it's both.” 

Steve started to defend his friend, which didn’t annoy you, he would and probably did the same thing for you. “He was just-”

“–protecting me I know.” Your head fell. “But this isn't like you and Connie. I’m in this life too. I didn't choose to be a wife of someone in the DEA, I chose to be DEA.” 

The silence on the phone wasn’t because he was mad or annoyed, it was because he got it. 

“So he called you?” He broke the silence again, something he was getting good at. 

“Once.”

“I give it two weeks before he’s back in your bed.” Steve chuckled. 

Your voice raised as your head snapped up like there were people around you that heard him. “Steve!”

The smile on his face could be seen not only from miles away but even through the phone. “What? I lived below you both, walls were thin in Colombia.” 

“Gross.” You mumbled. 

“Tell me about it.” Steve scoffed. 

There was that silence again, the only noise being the buzzing of the phone.

“Back in my bed?” You frowned in question to his statement earlier.

“Yea.” Steve answered fast. “You’re stubborn. You’re not gonna cave in. He’s gonna come to you.” He paused before continuing, “again.” 

“You should’ve been a profiler not drug enforcement.” You teased the man. 

“I still got time.” He shrugged.  

“I miss you too by the way.” You were standing up knowing that the conversation was coming to an end.  

“Hey, I said Connie and Liv miss you. Not me.” He pointed his words in a correction. 

“Fuck you, Murphy.” You would have pushed him if he was in front of you. “Thanks for this.”

“So I did make you feel better.” He teased as he stood up himself.

“I’m hanging up now, goodbye.” 

“Good time to tell you I was the one who told Jav to call you?” 

You heard him. You felt like arguing. You felt like rolling your eyes into next year. You even felt like asking him what the fuck he was thinking but there was a part of you who kind of knew he must’ve been behind this. So you decided to get even.

“No problem, I told him I needed time to think and that he should talk to you.” 

There was a knock that could be heard muffled in the background on Steve’s end followed by the sound of his voice stuttering from the shock of what was happening.

“That should be him! Love you, Murph, bye!” 

[bluestar22x]

June

Sweet Summer - June

Summary: It’s another Friday night drinking alone in a bar, but this time it doesn’t have to be.

Pairing: Javier Pena x Virgin!Reader (She’s in her 30s, just late to the game)

Rating: 18+ series

Warnings: None really for this chapter, besides a curse word or two. Pretty tame. Reader has some insecurities but Javi also has his own. Reader does have some physical descriptions, but her race is unidentified.

Word Count: 2,604

Author’s Note: Like I said on the masterlist, not sure how this came to be, but here you go.

xxx

Laredo, Texas

A lot had changed since Javier Pena had retired from the DEA, but some habits were hard to kick. Not just smoking (he was back on nicotine chews, for however long that would last) but also his frequenting of bars.

He spent most of the week working with his father on the ranch, repairing fences and moving cattle to whatever part of the property they were supposed to be grazing on depending on the season, but weekend nights were for wandering the small city, finding a bar, and drinking their liquor.

He’d spent a lot of time in bars in Colombia, drinking away the stress of the day, his regrets, and the violent images that haunted him day and night. His reasons for drinking hadn’t changed much in Laredo, though boredom could be added to the list. It wasn’t like he wanted his old job back, but he did miss some of the unpredictably. Maybe he just needed a hobby. Something new and exciting in his life. He’d joined the DEA and left Laredo for a reason, for a purpose and for an adventure. But what to do or where to go now were questions he couldn’t easily find answers to anymore.

He didn’t expect to find them with someone else either. But life’s funny like that.

x

It was an unbearably hot Friday night in early June when he ended up in the same room as her. He’d planted himself down on a stool at a bar on the second floor of a busy cowboy themed restaurant and had already thrown back a shot of whiskey when he spotted her.

It wasn’t her appearance that drew him to her. She was pretty enough, sure, but he’d seen plenty of pretty woman in his time. She was dressed nice enough as well, a black blouse and tight blue jeans, but still, far from unusual. What made her stand out was she was alone, sitting at a four person table, picking at a piece of grilled chicken - not like she had a lot on her mind or that she was sad, but rather like she was bored.

He could relate to that.

Javier hadn’t been with a woman for a startling long time (for him). Not since returning from Colombia for the final time. Too lost in his thoughts and too busy on the ranch to particularly care for once. And it wasn’t so easy to find women in Laredo, mostly because he hadn’t tried very hard to find one and he wasn’t sure what he wanted with them. No strings attached like in Colombia? Or something more? He wasn’t sure if he was ready for the latter. 

It wouldn’t hurt to talk to her though.

Javier stood and approached her table, drink still in hand.

“Flying solo too?” he inquired.

She glanced up at him, seemingly startled that someone had approached her. “Uh, yeah. I tend to do that now.”

Her eyes flitted over his frame, and she blushed when her dark eyes met his own afterwards. She let her eyes fall to the glass of Sprite next to her plate to train her expression before returning her gaze to him.

He smiled the most friendly smile he had in his arsenal to reassure her. She didn’t need to be embarrassed about looking him over. It was a compliment as far as he was concerned.

That she didn’t think it would be to him or that she was uncomfortable with showing her interest, and that she lacked a poker face made it clear to him she was of a more shy personality type. Probably even inexperienced. He was used to being with confident women, experienced women who knew all the right things to do and say, but he wasn’t going to be that guy who’d dismiss a woman for that alone.

“Now?” he prompted, curious.

She sighed heavily. “New job. New city. No familiar faces. And I don’t make friends easy. I once got told by a classmate in middle school I was too intimidating. Apparently my resting face is bitchy.”

“Doesn’t hurt to be a little intimating,” he informed her, studying her face again. He still didn’t know what the hell that kid had been talking about though. She looked pleasant enough to him. “Helps keep the wrong kind of people away.”

“And the right,” she countered, taking a sip of her drink. The way she had reached with need for it, he wondered if it wasn’t just Sprite. “So, what’s your name?”

“Javier,” he replied, surprised she’d taken the initiative. “But most call me Javi. You?”

She flashed him a small smile, a great one, and told him her name. “You wanna sit down?”

She gestured at the seat across from hers. Her expression was unreadable, but her voice gave away nervousness, afraid of rejection even though he was the one who had strolled over to her table.

“Sure,” he said as brightly as his temperament allowed, taking the seat swiftly.

“So what are you doing here alone?” she asked. “Not a local either?”

“No, I am,” Javier answered, placing his drink on the table. “I just don’t have many friends either and the ones I have are not from around here.”

“Another forced loner?”

“Not forced,” he corrected. “Just haven’t put in the effort in a long time.”

He hadn’t really had a friendship outside of work since high school. There was Connie, his old partner’s wife, but still, he’d only gotten to know her because he had worked with Steve.

His love life hadn’t been much different. There had been Lorraine before he’d left Laredo, but otherwise his romantic encounters (if they could be called that) had since always had some kind of connection to work.

He’d told himself it was because the job didn’t allow for it, not really (after all it had nearly torn Steve and Connie apart), but it had also been rooted in a fear he refused to admit.

She leaned in towards him, like she had a secret to tell. “I have to admit, I haven’t either.”

“Why not?” Javier inquired, eyebrows slightly raised. Not because he was shocked by any means, but rather because of the moves she was making.

Never underestimate. 

“I was busy with college and then finding a job after,” she explained, pausing, hesitating to say more. “I didn’t take care of myself as much as I should’ve because of it, and the result made me more prone to sticking to streaming Netflix than going out with any potential friends.”

“I can relate to not taking care of yourself well enough,” he told her. “I’m currently trying to quit smoking.”

“Not for the first time,” she guessed, no question or judgement in her tone.

“No,” he admitted.

“It’s not easy,” she said, quietly, eyes downcast. “Giving up a bad habit. Especially if it’s a stress reliever.”

It was Javier’s turn to feel awkward. He tapped some fingers on the table. This was getting deep fast. Too much serious talk, not enough flirting.

“Do you want to get out of here?” he asked.

Her eyes widened and he laughed, shaking his head at his careless words. “I meant to walk through main street. I could point out some places. Since you’re new and all.”

She blushed again over having assumed he was jumping the gun, but recovered faster than last time. She chewed on her lip, and wasn’t that the prettiest fucking thing? “Sure.”

She called for her waitress and after she paid her bill they headed out onto the street shoulder to shoulder.

Laredo was a product of its heritage. Lots of festive color and lights. Lots of buildings that felt like their base plans had been ripped out of an old western that could’ve taken place before settlers really took a hold in Texas. They really hadn’t in this city. Most residents were still of Mexican or Central American heritage.

A lot of the locally owned restaurants reflected this. Javier pointed out some of his favorites as they passed them and she took genuine interest. Where she lacked confidence, she made up in earnestness. She seemed to hang onto his every word and never missed an opportunity to ask questions. She could easily make someone feel important, like their opinions mattered, if they were inclined to that kind of mindset.

He pointed out some bars too, but while she showed interest in his words she didn’t in the actual places.

“I don’t drink,” she explained eventually. “Alcohol doesn’t mix well with my family members. Medically. My father ended up in the ER a few times in his youth trying to ignore it.”

Javier was very grateful that wasn’t an issue he’d had to contend with.

“So, you seem to have a refined palette,” she said as they turned a corner, onto a less crowded road. “You in the restaurant business?”

He chuckled. “Hardly. And I definitely do not have a refined palette. I was a DEA agent. I work with my dad on the ranch now. You?”

“I am a marketing assistant,” she replied, stride faltering, twisting to face him. “What kind of ranch?”

If nothing else, this woman kept surprising him. Most people tended to hyper focus on his past job as an agent rather than show interest in his current one. Texas was full of ranchers after all.

“Cattle. Beef.”

She nodded. “Cool. I had a short list of dream jobs growing up. Working on a ranch was one of them.”

“It’s not as glamorous as the movies make it out to be,” Javier told her. “There’s a lot of mending fences and cleaning up after animals.”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” she said with a shrug. “I spent a summer at a horse camp back in upstate New York. We mucked stalls and took brooms to the aisles all morning, every morning.”

“Ah, so you’re a long way from home,” Javier noted. “Why here?”

“Best job opportunity I had,” she answered simply. She shrugged again. “And I wanted to get away. I was tired of being stifled by my parents. They mean well, but they’re overprotective and kind of always found a way to butt into my life. I’m an only child.”

“I am too,” he revealed, “But my parents weren’t scared to let me make my own mistakes.”

“Is that how you became a DEA agent?”

He raised his eyebrows, not sure how to take that, and she laughed. “I don’t mean that negatively. I just mean it’s not a safe job, running after drug dealers and drug lords. If I’d gotten into any kind of law enforcement I’d have been disowned.”

“Oh, my father wasn’t exactly fond of it either,” Javier informed her. “He tried to discourage me more than once. But I’m pretty stubborn.”

She grinned. “Of course.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She laughed. “Nothin’, cowboy.”

It wasn’t the first time a girl had called him cowboy, but it had been over a decade. It was strange, but the way she said it, so playfully, had him feeling something. The way she kept doing and saying unexpected things had him feeling something. There was a lot to her making him feel something honestly.

And he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such a laid back conversation with a woman. It felt natural. 

So it stung when she glanced down at her watch.

“On a schedule?” he teased, though he felt disappointed. He thought things had been going well.

She lifted her eyes back to his, and she noticed the disappointment in them. Her eyes widened slightly. “Don’t take that the wrong way! I’m having a great time talking with you, I just have to mind the time cause I have a dog at home.”

Javier relaxed, glad there was another reason that wasn’t bad news. “What kind?”

She smiled at his interest. “She’s a red and white Basenji. Her name is Trix.”

“Isn’t that those dogs that don’t bark?” Javier asked.

She huffed. “Sure. But they sure find other ways to make noise. They still have this type of yodel they use. Took forever to train Trix to stop using it constantly.”

He chuckled at the fond annoyance on her face.

“Do you have any dogs?”

“We used to have an Australian Shepherd when I was growing up,” Javier answered, “Beau. But now it’s just the horses and cattle and the few feral cats dad feeds occasionally so they stick around and kill off the barn mice.”

“Just,” she repeated, exaggerating the word. He was reminded that to her, that was a dream. “I hate to cut our walk off here, but I should head home before Trix makes a mess,” she continued with a sigh.

“Of course,” he said, giving her a nod and shoving his thumbs in his front jean pockets. “We can head back together.”

They retraced their steps and their conversation went on, falling onto favorite movies, favorite music, the usual typical basic stuff people getting to know each other tended to go over. He was pleasantly surprised she was into the same music as him. She was in her early thirties, not really that much younger than him, but he had an older man’s tastes when it came to entertainment. He’d grown up watching the movies and listening to the music his dad liked.

When they had finally made their way through the restaurant’s parking lot, up to her red 1990 Chevy Corsica, she turned to him, suddenly looking as unsure as she had when they’d first started talking.

“Sooo, I guess this is goodnight,” she said hesitantly.

“Yeah,” Javier said, lips curving upward. “I had a good time.”

She looked shell shocked. “You did?”

“Didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “I’m just not used to people saying that about me.”

Shame on them. “Well, I did. And I’d really like your number.”

She beamed at him. “Sure, cowboy. Luckily I come prepared.”

She pulled a small notepad and pen out of the overloaded purse she’d been lugging around all night. “The girl scouts would be proud if I’d ever been a member.”

She jotted down her phone number and tore out the little page she’d written on, before passing it to him, a playful smile on her face again, her confidence boosted by his query. “Don’t lose it.”

“Want mine?” he offered.

“Even better.”

She handed him the notebook and pen and soon they both had a way to contact each other.

“I’ll call you,” he promised.

She nodded and there was a look in her eyes, a warmness in them, that had him leaning in for a kiss. It was a habit anyway. He wasn’t used to a first date without one.

Luckily she responded, leaning in, eyes flicking between his and his mouth, thinking too much as she seemed to tend to do. She bumped noses with him on the way and apologized but he just laughed it off, gently guiding her face the rest of the way until their lips met. The kiss was short and sweet, as innocent as she seemed until whenever she made one of her playful remarks. Not bad for a chaste one. And the way she chased his lips after he pulled away had him wishing that she didn’t have to go.

She grabbed onto one side of the collar of his plaid shirt. “Goodnight, Javi.”

He returned her goodbye as she met his eyes again and released him.

“Don’t leave me hanging,” she whispered in a pleading tone.

And with that she hopped into her car and left.

xxx

Masterlist

[zatyrlucy]

Shakira is awesome! Sure it can be selfish to not want to do anything with your country, but ever thought it's also for mental and emotional health? Shoot, it's like calling people selfish for wanting to leave in the first place in pursue of their dreams and wanting a better life.

Its very normal in latinoamerica to leave and never return when you have the chance. Heck, almost every famous colombian do that, but Shakira is one of those special cases that make people mad. There have been "scandals" around her that have divided the opinion of colombians. Some think she hates the country, others, like you, think that she just wants to be happy in Spain, her husband is there after all.

The most memorable scandal was when she sang wrong some of the lyrics of the national anthem. Maybe people took that personally since that happened in a very serious scenario (The Summit of the Americas). I remember a lot of people hating her on social media, saying stuff like "why not ask her about the national anthem of Spain hmm?? maybe she remembers that one" and stuff like that. We will never know the reason why that mistake happened to her.

People also complain about her not being present when some events happen in the country, like protests, sports events, or music festivals. About the protests, I remember people complaining that the guy from Calle 13, Rene Peréz, is most present than any other famous singer when that kind of situation occurs. In 2016 it seems that people got mad at her and other famous people for "not supporting enough" the peace process with Las FARC and thats when Zootopia came out, so part of social media was like "funny, she talks more there about injustice there than in real life" while the other part was just, celebrating she was in the movie. Its always a duality, some hate her, others dont. And yes, I know she has made donations and creates charities but unfortunately, people tend to forget that since...most famous people do that stuff regularly, so it has been taken for granted.

Sadly she became an outcast, I honestly dont agree with people hating her just because she is in spain or because she speaks like a spanish person and forgot the colombian accent (there were fans who literally turned against her just because of that), but at the same time, I hardly remember that she exists. People who are not their fans only remember her when she does something incredibly big, or when there is a new scandal about her. I guess thats the paradox all latinoamerican countries have to deal with, when someone is famous and leaves to "never return", can be either forgotten or hated, but at the same time, if said person never leaves, they cant advance in their career, can they?

Also, this is the only answer Im gonna give about the topic, as I said, Im not that much into Shakira to the point of getting into a whole cultural/political thing, there is enough of that on facebook. If you like her and Im wrong for letting myself go in the heat of the moment (i guess im excited about the movie) then no problem, my apologies, I will talk better about her next time and that will not happen again (maybe i'll investigate what she has been doing later because after the super bowl thing I have no idea). This is not a show business blog after all, so I dont wanna get inside that crazy world.

If Shakira appears in the new movie, good, if not, well, whatever I guess. Wouldnt be surprised if the director went for a more traditional way with Carlos Vives or other vallenato singers from the 80s and 90s (there was an accordion in the trailer so I dont doubt there will be some vallenato in the movie).

[pjwritingblog]

Prompt: Bruno peeks into your future, not because he has a crush on you or anything! Just because...y'know...he wants to know if you ever get a significant other

a/n: i'm pretty sure i saw another post with this same concept, not trying to steal any ideas! just having fun :) also do they eat paletas in colombia? i have no idea.

Bruno Madrigal did not have a crush on Y/N. He didn't! He was a grown man goddamnit, he didn't get crushes on every pretty person who treated him with anything better than contempt.

Which, y'know, maybe you were the first pretty person(other than his beautiful nieces and nephews, of course) who treated him with something better than contempt, but that was beside the point.

His family joked about his sugar addiction. How almost every afternoon like clockwork, he tried to convince someone to go down to the bakery with him. And sure, the shortbread cookies melted on your tongue like magic, and the cakes so rich you almost couldn't eat more than a bite, the paletas the single most perfect thing you could wish for on a hot day, but that wasn't why Bruno spent a small fortune there.

It was for you. He just...liked seeing you. Every day. It was very normal and not at all creepy.

Bruno didn't want to be creepy. His reputation had improved somewhat since he returned from his, ahem, 'extended vacation' but he didn't want to make you uncomfortable, especially at your job. Surely, after all, the whole town was already in love with you(not that Bruno was in love with you!), who could resist your unorthodox beauty? Your freckled smile? Your loud, boisterous laughter?

That's what he would do. He would simply find out who you were going to end up with. He'd take a quick little glimpse into your future, just enough to determine who the lucky winner of your affections was, and then he could let his heart be shattered and move on help the two of you fall in love! What a matchmaker he was to his friend.

In his new vision cave, he hastily set everything up, wanting to know already, and as the sand began to swirl in sparks of emerald, his heart started pounding. There you were, walking in the park hand-in-hand, sharing a meal, passed out together on a couch...Each vision of you and a shadowy figure made Bruno's heart splinter. He wanted you to be happy, he really, really did, this was normal, this was fine....he focused harder and the shadow finally started to take shape.

No.

That...couldn't be right.

He had to have done something wrong.

Because as the image sharpened, the vague shape, the one that you were gazing at adoringly, brushing the hair out of their eyes and giving them a slow, soft kiss....was him.

And he looked...happy. The bags under his eyes were less oppressive, his clothes didn't hang off a skeletal frame, but mostly he seemed to just glow, with warmth and love and joy.

He stopped the vision, dusting the sand off his body. He ran his hand through his hair, took a deep breath, and bolted down the stairs to find his family.

"Does anyone want to go to the bakery?"

[all-the-heart-you-cannot-see]

It has come to my attention, that many people did not understand Encanto and it's Generational trauma theme.

long ass post bellow the cut, you have been warned!

1. Some historical context

Now, before we proceed i think it's important to clarify something, the guys who chased Alma and Pedro out of their home were not colonizers, they were either guerrilla, paramilitary or even Colombia’s own military (although i don't think Disney is that bold) the reason why i think it's so important to clarify that, it's because if these were colonizers that would mean this event took place over 2 hundred years ago, and although many Latin American countries still suffer the effects of colonialism, as far as generational trauma goes, i think the most affected are the indigenous peoples.

instead, when we place the time of the events where it belongs it means it could've even happened in the last 10 years, this war has been going on for the last 70 years and it mostly affects people from rural areas, they are either forced out of their homes by guerrillas and paramilitary, or their children are taken by the army to continue the string of young guys send to die in the front lines, the guerrillas even take the girls, you are killed if you refuse.

The generational trauma is alive in the Colombian people today, it's a thing that keeps happening and it is unresolved, worsened by the fact that politicians bank on it to get votes from the people in the big cities who have never in their lives have to run out of their homes in terror.

2. My own experience as a Colombian

Now with that gruesome fact out of the way, let's talk about Hispanic family dynamics, and disclaimer, Hispanic people are not a monolith and our experiences are not universal so this may not apply to every his panic family out there, but it does to most. Also when i say some things are cultural, i don't mean they are okay because of it, it just means it’s not going to go away because the younger gens are realizing it or gringos on the internet are shaming us about it.

For a culture with so much machismo, most of our families are pretty matriarchal, either because the father figure was killed, like in Encanto, because he just left or maybe he had more than one family so he wasn’t around much, or simply he went out every day to work leaving the woman as the authority figure in the house, this, paired with the fact that many countries suffered from US imperialism in the XX century means many of us know the stories of everything our parents or grandparents (single mothers or not) had to go through to support the family.

This may also apply to you if your family migrated in the last three generations.

My grandmother wanted to be a model, there is a single picture from that time in the house from a photo shoot she did when she was 17, she says she was going to send that shoot to a magazine for a Model of the Year award, however since she was still a minor she needed permission from my great-grandparents to do it.

they had to leave the country that same year, she came back some 20 years later with two daughters and the money she, working as a secretary, and my grandpa, working as a bus driver, had saved to buy a bus back here and put a down payment for a house, she stayed a housewife when she came back and I’ve never known why they had to leave or why i don't know anything about my great-grandfather, but everybody in my family and my extended family talks fondly of my great-grandmother and respect her memory despite all the stories of her "disciplining them" when they were children, i don't remember her much, but they tell me i had it easy with her because i was always a well-behaved child.

i think of my great-grandmother as Alma. She had 4 children when she had to leave for another country on her own, my grandma being the oldest at the time. Over the years as I’ve gotten older and discovered more stories about the time they spent with her and the family’s return to Colombia many things about the way our family dynamics work have become clear to me, some have been really bad and the result of the generational trauma being passed along and some are great, like that fact that she managed to turn every one of her children into successful adults despite the fact that i don't think she even finished elementary school.

There is no place in our family for a nuanced discussion about my grandma's and her siblings upbringing or how my great grandmother later raised the entirety of my mother’s generation (more than 10 boys and girls) while her sons and daughters went out to work, because for them everything that we have today it's thanks to her, and any mention of any wrongdoing would be tainting that memory.

And it is true, my great grandmother was an exceptional woman and what she did for her children and grandchildren is remarkable and required an immense amount of will and strength on her part but that doesn't mean she hurt the family as well. So many people complain about Abuela Alma being forgiven so easily when...it's realistic and i don't think you have put yourselves in the shoes of everybody in the family.

3. Finally, let’s talk about Encanto

Alma says it herself, she isn't the woman she thought she was going to be, I’m sure she wasn't this bitter controlling woman when the triplets were growing up, they probably got to experience a warm, understanding mother, that helped them understand the magical powers they got at an age as young as five. I'm sure they saw her change as timed passed and all those fond memories they had and the knowledge of everything she had done for them kept them from reaching a point where their relationship with her was broken beyond repair.

I’ve seen many head canons of "oh, i bet Abuela Alma didn't like Felix" or "i bet she thought Agustin was below Julieta" but, didn't you guys see her entire sequence with Pedro?, I’m sure it was HER the one to say to her daughters to never accept anything less than royal treatment, they have wonderful husbands because her mother had one and taught them what a good marriage should look like.

So it's really funny to see all of you go in the complete opposite direction and strip all the nuance away from Alma to turn her into this monster villainous woman who has no regard for anybody in her family, when all she wanted from the beginning was to keep a safe place for them.

Something that called my attention during Dos Oruguitas is that as she walks in the hallways passing the doors and they age her, her facial expression never changes, is the same sadness and emptiness she had right after Pedro was killed and it's because she never got to process her trauma. It happened and she was immediately trusted into a leadership role and given immense responsibility, so she HAD to keep it away, there was no time for her to dwindle on it.

Even with the way she retells the story in the beginning is all mystified like a fairytale, she doesn't let them see how it truly affected her because if she did she would have to deal with it, and in her mind even all these years later she still can't afford to.

the entirety of Dos Oruguitas is her finally beginning to process the trauma that she suffered, I’m sure it’s the first time since it happened that she has allowed herself to feel everything she felt back then, it’s the first time she has realized that they are safe, that her family won’t get taken away from her, and her world won’t shatter again the same way it did all those years ago.

it's up to everybody whether they would forgive a family member in these circumstances, forgiveness is something really personal and the people who hurt you are not entitled to your forgiveness but, that’s why they forgave her so easily, it isn't fair, sure, but it’s how many of our families work, and it's how this family works in this context, no matter how dysfunctional.

[mmollymercury]

💎 & 🎥 would love to know your answers :)

@tomb-bloom-noctem

💎 - trivia/fun facts abt hyperfixation

How the crew spent 5 years making the film, talking to therapist in order to get everything right. And just all the details that come from colombian culture, that are everywhere in the film: how Mira points with her lips, Camilo snaps his fingers in excitement, the hand movements when angry- everything!

The fact that John Leguizamo was drunk when he recorded Bruno singing😭😭😭

Pepa's VA and Félix's VA's heights are reversed compared to their characters.

How Stephanie Beatriz was in labour when she recorded "waiting on a miracle"

Also, Stephanie was originally going to be Luisa but once they saw how she was irl they changed her role to Mira🦋

Of course, who would I be if I didn’t mention Bruno and Sid? Headcanon that he used Sid's voice to entertain the kids when they were younger💞

Isabela's power was originally growing potatoes!

Pepa's cigarettes in the concept art.

Antonio's animals have canonical names. Example: the toucan is called Pico. Theory: Pico flew into Brunos tower, looking for Mirabel, then chose to stay a little longer to keep an eye her, because of Antonio, Mirabel and Antonio have a close bound so maybe he asked for her, then, maybe the rats heard from Pico that she was in Bruno’s room and followed her, I don't see why they'd have needed to go in there before that.

Agustín's clothes show how he came from a wealthy family. He was an outsider in the Encanto. So that, combined with his clumsiness, probably didn't do him any favours in really impressing Abuela. No wonder it took Alma a bit to jive with him completely but you can tell she does now, example: how she looks to him and asks him to play music to liven up the room again. She could've easily asked Félix, he's a happy, infectious personality but the chose Agustín, that shows that she trusts him. Said it before and I’ll say it again: imo, her opinion of him changed when she found out he had a talent for playing piano.

In concept stages, Félix and Agustín were going to get powers once they joined the family.

Félix has always been on good terms with Alma so, he was instantly accepted and approved when he and Pepa fell in love.

Félix's and Agustín's natal families are still alive and live in Encanto!

Agustín was born on father's day💘

Isabela was born on August 7th, which is the day two colombian celebrations take place: the Battle of Boyacá and the Medellín Flower Festival.

Félix means "Happy" in Latin. And it really suits him 💓💓

Bruno could've been named Oscar yeah- but he could've also been named Emo

How there was a deliberate effort for the lead character to not have a comical sidekick. I love that, when the toucan flew into the tower with Mira, I was disappointed that he'd be her funny animal sidekick, when he flew away I was so happy!! And so relieved that the movie said: no, Mirabel and her family can carry this themselves.

In 2018 the crew took an extensive trip to Colombia to make everything accurate!

A 'madrigal' is a musical term and is used when people sing on top of eachother, which is what happens in 'We don't talk about Bruno'.

Most of the VAs are colombian-born/colombian-descent actors

Dolores clapping with her fingertips because of her hearing.

Alma has a speaking voice actor and a singing voice actor I would've never known tf!

📽 - fav scenes

Favourite scenes(I'm just writing as they come to my head so these will be out of order lol)

Waiting on a miracle

This part specifically:

Always gives me goosebumps and when I was able to see Encanto in cinemas, it was just even more amazing AAHHH😭💖

The beginning vs the end/Alma's romanticised version of how the miracle was born and what actually happened:

Bruno’s reveal + him almost falling over after he jumped over the gorge.

What she actually looked like is just so powerful it's amazing. Her face, how she collapses- my HEART.

And of course this part too:

No words, just perfection.

Then directly after that: 'he sent me you' has brought me so close to tears so many times I can't even describe-😭

And the music as the light slowly gets brighter as Mirabel tells Alma how important she is to the family. The hug and how Mira smiles and holds on like she's been waiting for this her whole life- AND THEN ALL THE BUTTERFLIES-

How the butterflies all fly to the gap in the mountains, showing how this is a good thing and walls are literally being broken and people are finally talking to eachother-

GOOSEBUMPS. GOOSEBUMPS. GOOSEBUMPS

Then...

"Brunito"

😭😭😭😭😭😭💞💞💖💖💖💖💖💖💖Asdffhkvjs.yvyj.

THE PLATE.THE PLATE.THE PLATE.THE FUCKING PLATE-

Absolute goosebumps in 'what else can I do', when Isa hugs Mira and then they skydive through the air, whip and nae nae around one of those spinny wind things; then land in a pile of flowers.

Directly followed by the fight that is so real and amazing it's criminal.

Honestly I could be here all day so this is a SEVERELY SHORTENED LIST but I think the scene that genuinely hits me the most is this part in all of you:

IT LITERALLY MAKES MY HEART ACHE.

Isabela finally giving Mirabel love and support- and how amazing this must feel for Mira, it makes mY eyes SWEAT. "We see how brave you've been" just has so much POWER behind it, imagine finally being validated after being pushed down and ignored like- yes! I have been brave! I do burn bright! OMFG😭

The call back to Antonio's ceremony & Mirabel’s all in one- I CAN'T. Imagine how out of this world and amazed Mira felt when she put the doorknob in and then EVERYTHING GLOWED. like that literally makes my heart ache,,,,

And just the whole family in general doing this for her I CANT DESCRIBE IT, ITS BEAUTIFUL, ITS PERFECT, IT GIVES ME LIFE.

"I see, me. All of me."

🥺😭💖

[thirsty-flygirl]

Touch Me

Formerly The Textile Series

A Javier Peña x f! Reader Romance

Rating: Explicit - language, sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll. You know the drill, no one under 18 allowed.

Word Count: 2168

A/N: Look, it’s no secret that I would let Javi absolutely ruin me so here is The Textile Series, back again with a few changes, so I can simp some more over my favorite DEA agent.

******

Part IV: Leather

You slammed the shot glass down, proudly popping the lemon between your salt-swollen lips. Tequila always tasted good and, with one of Escobar’s most notorious sicarios now in US custody, it tasted even better.

“C’mon, Javi, take a shot with me,” you shouted across Murphy to your other partner, who offered you his signature smirk, the corner of his lips lifting as he regarded you. Steve placed a palm against your face and playfully pushed you back, grimacing.

“Christ, woman, you’re gonna make me go deaf,” he complained. You poked a finger into his ribs, gleefully watching as he doubled over. “Ah! No tickling, that’s not playing fair and you know it.” He clambered off the barstool and pointed to the now-empty seat. “Sit. That way you don’t have to scream at Javi.”

You shuffled about and made yourself comfortable on the stool, offering Javier a grin. His smirk shifted into a full-blown smile, that sweet little dimple popping, and your stomach flipped at the sight. Your feelings for Javier were getting out of control, strengthening each day you spent together. You’d nearly kissed him right there at the President’s ball last night, in front of your superiors, not giving a second thought to the damage it could affect on your career. You had worked hard, damn hard, to get where you are, despite the sexism and harassment you’d received because you were a woman. Hell, Steve and Javier were two of only a few men you could think of that didn’t treat you like your only worth was between your legs.

But there you were, hunting down Colombia’s most notorious drug lord, and all could do was simper like a teenager every time Javi smiled.

“You’re drunk,” Javi offered, shifting in his seat to lean on the bar next to you. His elbow brushed against yours, leaving your skin tingling from where your bare skin met. As usual, the top buttons of his shirt were undone, leaving his chest on display. Your eyes roved over his form hungrily, slipping down to see the smattering of dark hair on his chest, before settling on his gorgeous face.

Up close, Javier was disarmingly beautiful. His dark hair fell over his forehead as he leaned into you, eyes searching yours as though they could see every secret etched on your heart. A smattering of freckles dotted his face, barely visible, but you had stared so long and so hard at him that you had every perfect imperfection memorized. His hand wrapped loosely around his tumbler of whiskey and you couldn’t help but imagine that hand wrapped around yours, tethering you to him as you finally gave into your desires.

“I’m not,” you finally managed, finding yourself inching closer to him, a coil of desperate need beginning to unfurl within you. Taking his glass, you let your fingers brush against his, watching his pupils dilate. You took a sip of the biting liquor, letting it trail a path of fire down your throat. “I’m just feeling good.”

Javi reached up to wipe a drop of whiskey from your lips with his thumb, raising an eyebrow. “Feeling good, hmm? And why’s that?”

You let out a soft whimper at his touch, just loud enough for Javier to feel the vibration on your skin. His eyes darkened and he let out a deep sigh. “You’re gonna get me in fucking trouble one of these days.”

The two of you sat staring stupidly at each other, as though you were the only two people in the crowded bar. Heart pounding and cunt throbbing, you let your fingers settle on his thigh, trailing them toward the seam of his jeans and so close to the place you felt pressed against you last night.

You leaned forward and closed the distance, whispering in your partner’s ear “I heard you like—”

“—Okay, it’s time to go,” Steve thrust his arm between the two of you, setting his empty beer bottle on the worn, wood bar with a loud thump. You and Javi sprung apart like kids caught necking, a wave of embarrassment crashing over you along with the realization that you had been so wrapped up in Javier that you’d forgotten you were in public.

Javi pulled back like he’d been punched, the naked desire written on his face shifting back into a closed, unaffected expression. Nodding at Steve, he avoided your eyes and stood.

“Yeah, it’s late.”

Your stomach lurched at the speed with which Javi could turn off any sign of being interested in you. It was like hot and cold with him, and you were starting to wonder if he even thought of you as more than a potential fuck. You weren’t blind; you knew exactly how your partner managed to get such reliable intel. It wasn’t like you could fault him - you had no claim on him and you knew he was just trying to get one step ahead of Escobar. But the thought of his body bringing another woman the kind of pleasure that you could only imagine, while you lay in your bed at night writhing on your fingers? That was enough to send a wave of jealousy surging through your veins.

You clambered off the stool, leading the way to the door in silence. If Javi wasn’t affected by you, well, you could at least act as if you felt the same. You emerged from the warm bar into the cool night air sweeping over your heated skin like a balm. You continued walking down the street toward the Embassy apartments; the bar wasn’t far from where all of you lived and, while Steve had driven over after work, you wanted to clear your head a bit. Decidedly ignoring their calls to “get in the damn car” (Javi’s words, not yours), you managed to get nearly a block before a hand closed over your elbow.

“What the hell are you doing?” Javi demanded, his dark eyes flicking around to the dark, run-down buildings surrounding you. As much as you wanted to fall into his arms, you pulled away and continued meandering down the street toward your apartment.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” you called back flippantly, “I’m walking home!”

Javi groaned in a mixture of exasperation and defeat, jogging a few steps to catch up to you. “Not alone, you aren’t,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Here, at least take my jacket,” he ordered, shrugging off his worn, leather coat and placing it around your chilled shoulders. He sighed loudly as you continued walking, calling after you. “You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?”

You spun around in a circle with your arms out, laughing into the night. “I’m a pain in YOUR ass? Javier Peña, you are, without a doubt, the most confusing, irritating man I’ve ever met!” You continued down the street shaking your head and laughing into the night while you continued your rant.

"What I don't understand," you threw over your shoulder in his direction, "is how you can just change direction and act like we don't have anything here. . . like you weren’t about five seconds from fucking me right there in the bar. . . .” Trailing off, you felt the fight leave you. Exhaustion crept through you in its place, and all you wanted now was to get home and sleep your buzz off.

“Hell, maybe I’m just imagining things,” you mumbled tiredly.

You heard Javi's steps come up beside yours, somehow felt his warmth even from feet away. You hated the feeling of tears building in your eyes. The last thing you wanted was to be an emotional wreck in the face of Javi's aloofness. His warm hand closed around your elbow once again, but this time you let him pull you back.

“You think this is just some goddamn game to me?” Javier whispered fiercely, tugging your arm so that you fell forward against him. His free arm curled around your waist, holding you in an approximation of the exact position you had been in while dancing last night.

“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he gritted out, those deep, brown eyes glittering with fire. Javi brought his hand up to cup the back of your neck, holding you in place while he continued, and all you could do was stand there, transfixed by his words and the sheer emotion behind them. “You think it’s easy for me to stay away? To act like I’m not thinking about you every goddamn minute of the day?" He shook his head with a defeated expression.

“All I want is to have you,” he continued, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin just under your ear. He paused and your eyes fluttered closed, waiting for the moment when you would finally feel his lips on yours.

Without warning, he released you, leaving you cold and wanting as your eyes flew open. Looking at his face, you saw pain etched in every line, agony reflecting in his eyes.

“But I can’t give you what you want.”

He turned away, looking down the street, jaw clenched. You felt tears prick your eyes, frustrated with his words. “Javi,” you began, reaching out, “You’re what I want, I don’t need—”

“No,” he insisted, refusing to meet your eyes. “I need to catch Escobar, that’s the only thing that matters. I’ve been so distracted and I—” He broke off, his hand coming up to massage at his neck in a gesture so familiar it hurt. He dropped his head with a frustrated sigh and gently pushed at your shoulder.

“Come on, we need to get home.”

You let Javier walk a few steps ahead of you, mind spinning and heart squeezing painfully in your chest. You had felt so warm in his arms, so alive, like every one of your nerve endings buzzed when you were pressed against his body. Now, even with the worn leather of Javi’s jacket pulled around you, you felt chilled, lonely, incomplete.

Down deep, you knew Javier Peña was a selfless man. He wanted to do good, be good, but always felt like he was falling short. He had one mission in Colombia: to capture Pablo Escobar. Anything beyond that was unnecessary, a distraction; something you understood well.

But your heart was selfish - you wanted both. To find Escobar and have him extradited and locked up with a maximum sentence, definitely. But on those lonely nights and the moments in-between when you could imagine something other than the gritty underworld of Colombian drug trafficking, you wanted Javier. Wanted his arms around you, his mouth against yours. You wanted to trace the lines of his neck with your tongue, wanted to run your hands down his torso, then lower, lower, until you breathlessly gripped him and slid down, finally finding home in the middle of the madness.

At an impasse and emotionally drained, you stayed silent for the remainder of your walk, watching Javi turn his key in the security door and shuffling in behind him. You began up the stairs, the feeling of Javier’s gaze burning through you, before you remembered the coat curled around your body.

“Oh, I forgot,” you mumbled, moving to the bottom step while shrugging the garment off. You held it out to Javier, keeping your eyes on the floor, silently begging him to just take it so you could lock yourself in your apartment and break down in private.

“Keep it,” Javi replied, the gravel in his voice still sending a thrill of arousal through your body despite the fact that you felt like he was slipping away from you. "Something to remember me by when we get out of this shithole."

You smiled sadly, reaching out to place a hand gently against his chest, your palm settled over the steady beat of his heart.

Javier stared at you, the longing in his eyes so tangible you couldn't stop the tears from falling. He gently swiped them from your cheeks, a sad smile on his lips.

"Don't cry over me, Sweetheart. I'm not worth your tears."

He leaned in to place a chaste kiss on your cheek, letting his full lips linger for a moment before taking a step back, the inches between you feeling like an impassable chasm. You stood silently, afraid that the tenuous grip you held on your emotions would break if you tried to speak. Javier turned and entered his apartment, never giving you a backwards glance, and you were left standing on the stairs alone.

With no reason to hold back you let your tears fall, your knees giving way as you sat down hard on the dirty step beneath you. You buried your face in the bundle of soft leather you held, weeping over a love you never had in the first place. Eventually, once your sobs calmed, you made your way up the stairs to your apartment and fell into bed exhausted, still clutching Javier’s jacket in your arms.

[danniburgh]

Give you what you want (Javier Peña x f!reader x Horacio Carrillo)

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!reader x Horacio Carrillo

Summary: You’ve been crushing hard on Javier - and Colonel Carrillo. And when they both find out about it, they can’t help but indulge you.

Word count: +11.1k

Chapter warnings: mild angst, mentions of violence, divorce talk, discussion of polyamorous relationship. OT3 SMUT, oral (m and f receiving), fingering, double penetration, alcohol, a lot of cum lol

A/N: this is a collab between me, @maharani-radha-writes​ and @queenofthefaceless, okay, yes this is a repost (basically the blog in which this os was posted blocked me). originally posted on april 6th 2021

ao3 // Masterlist // ko-fi

comments and reblogs are eternally appreciated 💓

Carrillo slammed his face on the steering wheel of his car with a groan. He had just spent all day in court finalizing his divorce—which had been going on for months—and just as he had gotten home, he realized that he had forgotten his service pistol at the office. Something he was not allowed to bring in the courtroom.

Fuckers.

He had separation anxiety from it, so even though he had multiple spares in the house, he had one trusty weapon, and he wouldn’t be caught dead without it. He glanced at the clock, and saw that it was only eight o’clock, so it wasn’t too late for him to swing back to base and grab it. Shaking his head, he turned the ignition of his car back on and reversed out of his driveway to head back to the station.

When he got there, he used his keys to enter through the back doorway, not really wanting to have to greet the guards at the front. He was just… way too done with people that day. Although he and his by then ex-wife had separated amicably (or as amicably as it could get), the divorce had taken a huge toll on him. He and Juliana had separated about five months before, and he had spent that time sitting in lawyers’ conference rooms, arguing over this and that. He was ready to just give her everything and anything she wanted if it meant he could get that painful process over with.

Truth be told, Carrillo was lonely. He had been for a long time, even while he was still married to Juliana. They had been less of a married couple and more like roommates for the past year at least, and it was getting to them both. His job was tough and dangerous–Juliana didn’t understand a lot of it. To be fair, he kept most of it from her, but that got exhausting after a while. He longed to just...let go, and he couldn’t do that with her. And after a while, she had decided that staying married to him (and his job) was more trouble than it was worth. He couldn’t blame her, not one bit.

It didn’t matter any more. He had firmly closed that chapter of his life, and was ready to move on. He didn’t know what the future looked like for him, but the only thing that he was sure of was that Pablo Escobar would be dead. He would make sure of it–even if he died trying.

After finding his service pistol, which had been stuffed in a holster under his desk, Carrillo closed the door to his office, and proceeded to walk down the hallway to the back exit. But he stopped when he heard voices coming from the bullpen.

Odd.

He hadn’t seen anyone when he had come in. He turned slightly and strained his ears to try to see if he could discern who it was. Then he heard the distinct Southern American drawl of none other than Steve Murphy. The man had been pulling late nights in the office ever since his wife got up and left him.

“All right, kiddo, care to tell me what the fuck your problem is?”

Who–? Was “kiddo”? It certainly couldn’t be Peña. It was a Friday night, surely Peña was off….doing something (or someone) else.

“What’s my problem? What’s your problem, Murph?”

Oh, it was you. The lone female agent of the DEA. Carrillo had been quite wary of you when you had joined the team about a year before. He really wasn’t sure what, if anything, you would be bringing to the table. And he thought that having two DEA agents was two too many already. But over time, you had proven to be a strong, capable, and intelligent partner, and his respect for you had grown.

Bringing you to Colombia had been a good decision, on the part of your superiors.

Now that he had identified the two people still stuck in the base, he should have been satisfied and been on his way. But something about Steve’s tone of voice kept him rooted to the spot. He really, really shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, especially since he was sure that it was a conversation he was not meant to hear.

“You’re on edge. A lot more than usual,” Steve said, “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, Steve. Just drop it,” you grumbled.

“Oh, so there is something?” Steve snarked, “Look, I normally would back off and leave you alone, but you’ve been highly distracted lately. And it’s affecting your work. I need to know what’s up or at least confirm that you’re going to get this resolved soon because we need your head in the game.”

Now that Steve mentioned it, Carrillo had noticed that you were...not yourself. And you hadn’t been for a while. But Carrillo was too caught up in his own drama to give it much of a thought.

“I’m sorry,” you sighed, “I’ll try not to be so scatterbrained. I’ll fix it, I promise.”

“Is this what I think it is? The thing you told Connie that I’m not supposed to know about?” Steve asked.

Carrillo knew he absolutely needed to leave. That was not a conversation he should be listening to. But he just could not help it.

“You’re going to have to be more specific, Steve. I’ve told Connie a lot of things,” you chuckled, nervously.

“I mean about–” there was a pause, presumably Steve looking around to check that nobody was there, “–your feelings. For, uh, ya know, Peña?”

Oh. That was news.

“And–uh–Carrillo I think?” Steve continued.

Wait...what?

Carrillo whipped his head around so fast that he winced as his neck twinged in protest. Since when...since when did you have feelings? For him? And Peña? What was happening? Someone needed to shoot him because that could not be real.

“Must you say it aloud?” you hissed.

“I’m sorry, kiddo, I don’t mean to embarrass you,” Steve apologized, “And normally I would mind my own fucking business, but this is getting out of hand. You really don’t think I notice the cows’ eyes you make at Peña when he’s not looking?”

“I don’t do that!” you denied, indignantly.

“Okay fine, maybe that’s a bit dramatic,” Steve conceded, “But the point still stands. You definitely need to get this fixed. Have you thought, oh I don’t know, telling Peña? Or even Carrillo?”

“Are you crazy?” you stammered, “Do you have any idea what that would do to my career? Not to mention that Carrillo is...fucking married?”

“Well, he’s divorced now,” Steve clarified, “And nobody has to know. It’s nobody else’s business but yours. I’m just saying, think about it ok? You deserve an outlet, just like everyone else.”

Carrillo decided that it was best to not stay and hear what you had to say to that. Instead, he hightailed it out of the base, as quickly as he could, trying to keep his footsteps light so as not to alert you and Steve to his presence. Once he was finally in the safety of his car, he put his head back onto the seat and let out a long breath, trying to figure out what he was going to do with that information. He couldn’t deny that the idea of you having feelings for him was incredibly flattering. You were a very guarded individual and quite hard to read sometimes–not so dissimilar to him. He would have never, in a million years, guessed that you would be interested in him, and that was mostly due to your closed off persona.

But to find out that you had feelings for both him and Peña? That was an interesting development. Carrillo didn’t know how to feel about that. But he can’t deny that it intrigued him...more than it should have. His mother would be completely mortified if she found out that he was entertaining this--whatever it was.

But his mother was not here. His wife was gone, and had taken the kids with her. It was just him, and his large house. And now, apparently, you and possibly Peña. Carrillo tilted his head contemplatively and started the ignition of his car.

Maybe...just maybe, there was something to this whole charade.

**Scene Break 1**

Steve was tired. Scratch that, he was exhausted. Not physically, but mentally.

Javier had been looking at you for far too long, and Steve could taste the yearning and the tension that lingered around the office when Peña looked at you. It was maddening, and Steve had no idea how Peña had managed this long without jumping you. After all, he never seemed to have a problem getting a woman’s attention and keeping it. So, why were you so different?

And the worst part of this whole circus is that you were so blissfully unaware of it. It made Steve’s mouth foam with rage.

When he told Connie over the phone, the previous night, what you had said to him and how you had confessed to being attracted to both men, she actually convinced him to talk to Javi on your behalf. Because Connie knew you, and she knew you would just shut up about it, guard it as if you were a dragon with a treasure, never say a thing, and suffer in silence until your feelings went away. And if they didn’t. Too bad. Steve hadn’t wanted to get involved. After all, you were an adult, and Javier was an adult. You should be able to sort these things out yourself. But alas, that had not happened. And if Steve didn’t do something about it, it was going to get out of hand, quickly.

So when you got up from your desk and got out of the office, Steve walked to Javier and slammed his hand on a pile of files that Javier was almost hiding behind.

“Yes, Murphy, how can I help you?” Peña drawled, trying to keep his voice as even and unaffected as possible.

“Don’t give me that innocent bullshit, Peña,” Steve growled, “I’m so sick of you.”

“What could I have possibly done now?” Javier huffed, pulling a cigarette out of his pack and lighting it. He figured that if he played dumb, Steve would go away.

Alas.

“You, and her,” Steve said, emphasizing his point by jabbing his finger in the direction of the door you had just walked out of, “There’s something between the two of you. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

Javier decided not to answer that. Instead he just took a puff of his cigarette and stared at Steve, daring him to continue.

“I’m serious Peña, stop playing coy. This is starting to affect your working relationship, and I’m getting sick of it,” Steve grumbled, “Do something about it. Now.”

It took a few moments of silence, but Javier finally decided to concede to Steve. Truth was, Javier’s head was full of thoughts. Full of you. Truth be told, getting infatuated with you was just a matter of time.

You were just… frustratingly attractive, incredibly strong and so damn smart. A dangerous combination, you were almost perfect. And that, scared the shit out of him. It had been a long time since Javier felt like that; he didn’t like the vulnerability of it all, he didn’t like how it was way too apparent that whatever you did, for small that it was, affected him in some way. He didn’t like the fact that he wanted to be with you all the time, see you all the time, talk to you all the time. He wanted to protect you all the time even when he knew you could perfectly protect yourself. And he had been feeling like that for months.

Javier interpreted that as karma, getting so madly, deeply into you and getting absolutely nothing in return. Until Steve chimed in, nosy as ever, to speak about something that was clear as a water drop but he just kept denying from himself.

He replayed what Steve had told him while he puffed from his cigarette and for a split second, and let himself smile at the words of his partner.

Steve was right. He was aware of how much he had been missing and how affected his job seemed to be because of how much time he spent thinking about you. It was so unlike him, and it was very unprofessional. But he just couldn’t help it.

You and your strikingly beautiful being. You letting him hold you close. You, with your hands on him. You and how sweet your lips must taste. You and how your naked body must look in the dimmed lights of his bedroom. Fuck.

So he decided, after his partner all but scolded him about being too dumb to realize, that he was going to face you and just… make things happen.

Steve smiled to himself while looking down at a file when Javier stood up from his own desk and walked out of the office.

“Attaboy,” he mumbled to himself.

**Scene Break 2**

You weren’t sure what it was, but suddenly the air in that bullpen had become oppressive, and you just needed to get out. Well, frankly...you weren’t stupid. You knew what was causing you to feel this way. It was stupid Steve and his stupid way of being right all the time, how the fuck did he do that? At some point, you were going to have to tell Javier (and possibly Carrillo, as well) how you felt, but if you could put it off for longer, you were absolutely going to do so.

You sat on the concrete wall bordering the police base, observing quietly as the citizens of Medellín went about their day, getting lunch and catching up with their colleagues. There was a man selling arepas just a few feet from you, and the smell was amazing. But no matter how tantalizing the scent was, you just couldn’t bring yourself to eat. All you needed was some air. Yeah, that’s what you needed. You’d be fine after a few moments.

Unfortunately, your peace wasn’t to last long, and as you were soon to discover, your observational skills would need a check up because Colonel Horacio Carrillo himself had just plopped himself next to you, and you hadn’t even noticed. Carrillo, for his part, waited a few moments before clearing his throat, startling you from your thoughts, and successfully getting your attention.

Ah shit.

One of the exact men that you didn’t want to deal with right now was sitting right next to you.

Joy.

“Those arepas look fantastic,” he remarked in that lovely accent you really liked, “Do you want one?”

You shook your head.

“No thank you,” you mumbled, “I’m fine.”

Carrillo hummed.

“I’m sure we could find something else if you would prefer. There’s all kinds of food in Medellín,” he replied. But you refused again.

“No, really, I’m fine. I don’t want any food,” you said.

Carrillo tilted his head and clasped his hands together, leaning forward slightly. He gave a small, almost imperceptible smirk, and if you didn’t know him so well, you would have missed it.

“I see,” he observed, amusedly, “So, then, Agent. What do you want?”

You frowned, and furrowed your eyebrows. What...what was he doing?

“I–I don’t want anything,” you replied, completely flabbergasted.

“Hmmm,” Carrillo began, “I don’t believe you. I think you want something.”

You raised your eyebrows at that. You’d never known the Colonel to be so bold.

“I want Escobar dead,” you quipped, “Same as you, I suppose.”

“Ah yes, I certainly want that,” Carrillo agreed, “But I want something else. Something that I imagine might be the same as you.”

You scratched the back of your neck, nervously, not sure where this was going.

“All right, Colonel, I’ll bite. What is it that you want?” you questioned.

Carrillo adjusted his position on the wall, turning so that he was facing you squarely. He looked you straight in the eyes before taking a deep breath, as if he was working up the courage to say something.

“You.”

You felt the air leave your lungs, Carrillo’s face was a puzzle laid before you but before you could say something else, you heard a deep, timbered voice calling your name.

You reluctantly turned around and saw Peña walking up to the both of you, you felt Carrillo shift beside you and let out a sigh, as if he knew something like that would happen.

“I was looking for you,” Javier mumbled, almost as if he didn’t want anyone else to hear but you.

“So, you found me,” your voice was shaky after the Colonel’s admission, and you tried to control it “What?”

“Can we–uh–talk?” he said, and you looked back at Carrillo.

“Can it wait?” you pleaded.

“No,” Javier declared.

“I think I know what this is about,” Carrillo announced, and you frowned at him, asking with your eyes for him to elaborate. But he just stayed quiet, looking between you and Peña.

“What do you mean?” Javier huffed, “This is a private conversation that I need to have with her.”

“I think we all need to have this conversation,” Carrillo mumbled, looking at the ground for half a second before returning his gaze to you and Javier.

“What are you two on?” you asked, frantically, “I am so confused.”

Javier glanced at the Colonel, at the way he was all but shifting around like a nervous kid. He realized Carrillo moved like he was hiding something, like he had a secret he so wanted to confess.

“Do you know something?” Javier questioned him, furrowing his brow. The Colonel turned to study him and there was a small moment in which they said nothing, and their eyes just locked.

And there, Javier saw him, as he was. Colonel Horacio Carrillo was an honorable man, everyone knew that, but as he was honorable he was dark, and Javier had a small suspicion of what he knew and was badly hiding.

Javier felt himself smirk at the man and Carrillo smirked back, and Javi knew it. Because he never misses things like that. For him is like having a sixth sense, somehow enhanced by his career and his experience. He just knows. Javier had never been indifferent to men. After all, being honest with himself, he had a little crush on Steve before he saw the wedding band. And Carrillo was… just his type. He never thought he would have the chance to even get closer to the Colonel like that. In the end, the time was not right and he was quite sure Carrillo wasn’t like that.

Clearly, he had been mistaken.

“Okay you two, I’ve had enough,” you grumbled, “What is going on? I’m sick of these games.”

“This is not a game,” Carrillo said, finally looking at you, you felt your frown get deeper.

“Then what is it?” you demanded.

Javier shrugged and took one last look at Carrillo, as if to confirm his consent, and replied.

“An arrangement,” he deadpanned, “With both of us.”

“If you want it,” Carrillo added, quickly.

You shot up from the wall you were sitting on and turned to glare at both of them. Javier put his hands on his waist and leaned on a leg, and Carrillo stood up as well, clasped hands in front of him, just waiting for you to say something. Anything.

Javier glanced nervously at Carrillo from the corner of his eye, searching his face for any sign of hesitation. I hope this is gonna go how you were planning, Carrillo, he thought, Because if it doesn’t and she refuses to speak to me again after this...I swear to god–

“Where did you get this idea?” you blabbered, feeling the sting of nervousness and insecurity settling into your stomach. Along with something else in your lower belly you refused to acknowledge at all.

Javier sighed, and shook his head.

“Steve Murphy has a big mouth,” he murmured.

“Dios mío,” you exclaimed, “He told you both?”

“Well, he told me,” Javier said, running a hand through his hair, “I don’t know about our Colonel over here.”

Now it was Carrillo’s turn to look sheepish.

“No, he didn’t say anything to me,” Carrillo admitted, “I overheard the two of you talking the other day.”

“You eavesdropped on me?” you gasped, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Is nothing I say private?”

Carrillo at least had the grace to look ashamed.

“It was an accident,” he tried to assure you, “But–I don’t regret listening in. I haven’t stopped thinking about it. About you.”

You scrubbed your face with your hands, trying to figure out what you were going to do. It wasn’t that you were–unhappy–more so embarrassed. You’d been carrying this secret for a long time now, and to have it so out in the open made you feel more exposed than ever. And you hated the feeling.

“I’m gonna need a minute,” you said, “Can we talk about this later? I need some space.”

Without waiting for a response, you briskly walked away from the police base and in the direction of the city. You weren’t sure where you were going or when you were going to be back. All that you knew was that your privacy had been massively violated, and you needed some space to collect yourself. Alone. And perhaps when you had calmed down, you could think about Carrillo and Peña’s proposal, like a functioning adult. But right now, you were too embarrassed (and aroused, let’s be real), to think straight.

Javier turned aside to look at Carrillo when your figure had disappeared into the city.

“So,” Javier broke the not-so-awkward silence, “Are you okay with this?”

Carrillo huffed at the question and glanced at the agent, noticing in him things he hadn't noticed before.

“Are you?”

Javier felt his stomach drop at the Colonel’s question… interesting.

“I’m all in,” he replied, smirking at Carrillo.

“Yo también.”

**Scene Break 3**

It was later in the afternoon by the time you had calmed down enough to return to work. You couldn’t believe what had happened today. You absolutely wanted to smack Steve. What you had told him was in confidence, and he had broken that trust. But you couldn’t deny that you were happy with the result. The idea of having even just one of those two men was enough to get you going, but both?

Men like them?

The pool of arousal was already forming in between your legs.

You could not deny how much you had wanted this, and how much you had been dreaming about it. And for a very long time. For god’s sake, you had lost sleep over this shit. It made you feel dirty, filthy, unprofessional. But you just couldn’t help it. You’d done a decent enough job of keeping your feelings in check, but now the cat was out of the bag.

And not only did these two men know how you felt. Apparently, they felt the same way. And for some godforsaken reason, they wanted you.

Were you really going to say no to an opportunity like that? Were you truly that stupid? No matter how much you were angry with Steve.

Connie would lose her shit when you'd call her to tell her about her husband’s work.

You walked into the bullpen and saw the office door opened, the first thing you saw was Javier’s face buried inside a file, his posture rigid and his hands grasping at the folder as if it were a lifeline.

He looked up and his eyes went wide when he saw you walk in.

But then you saw Murphy, sitting like nothing had happened and you saw red. You rushed at him and without a word your hand flew and you smacked him on the back of the head.

“What the fuck?” he yelled, and you heard Javier laughing behind you.

“You asshole,” you hissed, “Exactly what made you think it was a good idea to tell him? I trusted you to keep your mouth shut.”

“Excuse me,” Steve groaned, rubbing the back of his head, “I did you a fucking favor. I got tired of hanging around with you two idiots, just looking at each other and not saying shit.”

“You should not have done that,” you growled, fixing him with what you hoped was your most intimidating glare.

“Perhaps not,” Steve shrugged, “But I don’t regret it.”

“Can I–say something?” Javier asked behind you.

“No. Shut up.” you hissed without looking back at him.

“You do something like this again, and I’ll kill you,” you threatened Steve before storming out of the base, and into the parking lot. You sat in the driver’s seat of your car and banged your head against the steering wheel. You had had every intention of finding Peña and Carrillo and taking them up on their offer, but now all feelings of boldness had been once again replaced by shame and embarrassment. No doubt you were the talk of the police base, what with your massive crush on two of your colleagues.

Although you knew it was irrational, you couldn’t help but feel as though Carrillo and Peña were making fun of you. You knew it was stupid. Both of them were grown-ass men. They wouldn’t be so immature. If they didn’t like you at all, they would have just left you alone. But you just couldn’t help the raging insecurity you were feeling. Perhaps if you had actually told both of them, directly, how you felt, rather than let Steve Murphy do the hard work, then maybe you wouldn’t be feeling this way.

But that was all water under the bridge now, you supposed.

Later that night, you were heating up a pitiful TV-dinner in your apartment, not feeling up to eating, but you needed something, when your phone rang. You froze with the fork halfway to your mouth. There were only a handful of people who had your landline number, and even then, only a few of those people would have the guts to actually call it. This wasn’t going to be a fun conversation.

Sighing, you trudged over to the phone and lifted the receiver to your ear.

“¿Sí?” you asked, quietly, and you heard the low voice of Colonel Carrillo on the other end.

“It’s me,” he said softly, “You left work rather abruptly. I called to see if you were fine.”

“As fine as I can be, given the circumstances,” you grumbled.

“I’m sorry that things transpired the way they did, truly,” Carrillo mumbled, sounding genuinely apologetic, “But I meant it when I said I don’t regret finding out.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” you snarked, “You’re not the one whose colleague breached her trust.”

There was a pause before Carrillo spoke again.

“Do you regret it?”

Now it was your turn to pause, contemplating your words and how you would respond. You didn’t want to hurt him, but at the same time, you wanted to make it clear that you weren’t pleased with the means---even if the end was fantastic.

“I regret how this started,” you replied, slowly, not trusting yourself to say anything further.

Carrillo hummed over the line, contemplating your words.

“I can’t blame you for that,” he said, “But forget about Steve for a moment, please. Have you thought about it?”

You inhaled and held your breath for ten counts, trying to calm down your racing heart. You couldn’t deny that just the mere thought of being in the same room with these two men, especially in a non-platonic setting, was difficult for you.

“I think you know the answer to that, Colonel. You aren’t stupid,” you quipped, “Have you discussed this with Peña? I must admit, I am surprised at you both. This doesn’t seem like something either of you would be interested in.”

“We’ve discussed this, absolutely,” Carrillo said, recalling the deeper conversation he had with Peña earlier that day after you had slapped Steve, “I think we’ve both surprised ourselves, if I’m being honest. But if the attraction is there, it’s there. But I want you to know, there is no pressure. This only goes as far as you want it to go.”

You frowned at that.

“What do you mean?” you pressed.

“Querida,” he sighed, “What happens between the three of us–well–Peña and I know where we stand–it’s up to you now. If you don’t want this, then just say the word. We’ll pretend this conversation never happened.”

You took a shuddering breath and tried to respond as best as you can.

“I–”

“You don’t have to give me an answer now,” Carrillo interrupted gently, “Think about it. Make sure it’s what you want. Then you can let us know.”

“I–ok,” you stuttered, for lack of a better response.

“I should leave you to your evening. But think about it, and let me know what you decide ,” Carrillo said, “Have a good night, querida.”

“Sure, good night, Colonel,” you mumbled, hearing the click on the other end, indicating that Carrillo had hung up.

You passed the rest of the evening in relative silence, going about your mundane business with an extra air of heaviness. Slowly you could feel the embarrassment from the day give way to desire. As you lay by yourself in your bed, clutching at your pillow, you couldn’t help the acute sense of loneliness that you felt. After all, you hadn’t really had anyone before you came to Colombia, and your job here certainly killed whatever chance of having a relationship you might have had. It was why you had so easily fallen for both of your colleagues.

You were lonely. And they were lonely too. But it wasn’t just out of loneliness. You’d seen what Peña was like when he just wanted to have a warm body next to him. Just as it had taken courage for you to confess how you felt to Steve, it must have taken just as much strength for Carrillo and Peña to admit the same to you. This wasn’t going to be a one time thing–born out of isolation and tragedy–it would be something much more meaningful than that. You could feel it.

You glanced at the clock, seeing that it was just past midnight. Although you knew that Carrillo usually stayed up late, you didn’t want to bother him, so you dialed the number of the only other person who you knew would be up this late.

“Hello?” Javier Peña gruffed on the other end, clearly annoyed at having been woken up.

“Javier, it’s me,” you said, by way of greeting. You heard some rustling of bedsheets, no doubt Javier was fully awake now.

“Are you all right?” he asked, concern coloring his tone.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you assured him, “I just–I’ve thought about your offer. Yours and Carrillo’s.”

You heard a sharp intake of breath over the phone.

“And what do you say, cariño?” he questioned, hope ringing in his voice.

You took a deep breath, steadying yourself.

“Yes. I’m saying yes.”

**Scene Break 4**

You sat inside Javier’s car, silently, as he drove the two of you through the streets of Medellín towards Carrillo’s address. It was a Friday–exactly a week from when Carrillo had overheard you talking to Steve, and you were completely floored at how your life had changed that fast. You didn’t regret anything though, not one bit.

You were nervous though. Having one of these men was enough to make you swoon, but both? You weren’t sure what was going to happen. All you knew is that it would be a fantastic night. You just hoped that you could keep up.

A hand on your knee brought you back to the present, and you glanced over to see that Javier was eyeing you out of the corner of his eye as he drove.

“Relax, cariño,” he ordered, “It’s just us.”

You laughed.

“I know, that’s what I’m worried about,” you said, jokingly. But Javier wasn’t having it.

“Why would that make you nervous?” he asked, turning to face you when you had stopped for a red light.

“You two are my friends and colleagues,” you stated, “I don’t–want to disappoint you. Especially since we will have to go back to work after the weekend.”

Javier shook his head and pressed down harder on the accelerator, hoping that if he got you to Carrillo’s place faster, you’d stop your fatalistic thoughts.

“None of that,” he grumbled, shutting down your line of thinking as quickly as he could, “What happens between us tonight stays between us. That’s it. No pressure or expectations. Just enjoy yourself, okay?”

You nodded, not quite trusting yourself to speak. And thankfully, you didn’t have to say anything because you and Javier finally pulled up in front of Carrillo’s house. It was a much larger property than you had expected, with a beautifully-kept lawn and a mango tree just at the front of the house. It was a stunning place to live, and the thought that Carrillo had been staying there alone, with nobody to share it with, for the past several months just left you heartbroken.

Well. That was likely about to change tonight.

“You’re still sure, cariño?” Javier asked, taking your hand in his and staring at your knuckles, “If you’ve changed your mind, I can drive you back now. No questions asked.”

You shook your head.

“I’m completely sure, Javi. Don’t worry,” you assured him, and Javier nodded.

“Bueno,” he mumbled, “Let’s go.” And with that, the two of you walked up the path to Carrillo’s front door and rang the bell. Carrillo answered almost immediately, face relaxing at the sight of you.

“I hope you didn’t have too much trouble finding the place,” he greeted, stepping back to allow the two of you to enter his house.

“I have some wine if you would like,” Carrillo suggested, leading you and Javier into the kitchen after the two of you had kicked off your shoes.

Carrillo walked straight to the fridge and took out what appeared to be a pretty expensive brand of wine, but neither you nor Javier said anything in regards to it. Instead, you both sat down and exchanged a series of fugitive glances at each other.

You thought you needed the wine, the bitter, strong taste of alcohol to run through your veins in order to be able to process the moment in its entirety. But suddenly, as you glared at both Javier and Carrillo, there was no need for anything else. No liquid distraction to be drunk beforehand, no ridiculous and meaningless pleasantries or comfort words. You knew those men. You trusted them with your life every day when you went out there on the streets, and you trusted them just as much now. Their mere presence was sufficient to relax you and ease the tension, although you thought they would both agree that the tension was thicker than you could’ve imagined.

“I trust you both, and I care about you both, so damn much.”

It came out of the blue; you weren’t even sure you thought about it in your mind, and yet you said it nonetheless, standing up. Both of them seemed a little surprised by your impromptu confession, but patiently waited for your continuation, if there was any to begin with.

“What I mean is… why make this harder on ourselves? Why bother with small talk and awkward conversations when we can just… do it, enjoy the night?”

Javier was the first one who smirked. And of course he would, he was probably used to a lot of those moments, or similar ones, and had almost no issue baring it all, you thought. You swore, for a brief, almost too rushed moment, that you saw Carrillo hesitate with saying something and averting his eyes from both you and Javier, but you brushed it off. Instead, he looked tall and mighty at you, as his official position required, and smiled gallantly at you.

“You are the one in charge tonight,” he told you.

Simple, yet effective.

From the moment you heard that sentence, it did something to your ego. It gave you an unexpected boost of confidence, it sparked a desire, a flame so bright and hot you wouldn’t have believed it to be true in any other situation.

You took a few steps closer to Carrillo, all the while having Javier watch the scene unfold from the kitchen entrance. He stood up when you did, out of some long-forgotten courtesy that he didn’t used to care about anymore, and he just knew where it was all headed. He recognized the look in your eyes, the longing on your face. He knew what it meant, how much it must’ve consumed you, and he felt oddly enticed and captivated by it.

Just as swiftly as the night began, Carrillo’s hands rested on your waist while he kissed you. You wrapped your arms around his neck and he only brought you closer to him; his lips tasted surprisingly sweet, with just a faint tint of nicotine. Your chest was pressed against his, warm clothed skin found yours and you shivered against him. His hands gripped your waist as if saying farewell to them and he slid them up your body. You could feel Peña’s eyes fixed in your bodies, staring at the scene, and when the Colonel broke the kiss to nibble at your neck, you opened your eyes to see him next to you; half-lidded brown deep eyes, an opened bottle of wine in one hand and his lower lip in the other. Your skin was burning, and you had barely been touched.

You smiled at him when Carrillo took your jacket off, Peña smirked and took a sip of wine directly from the bottle, careless about any pleasantries.

Carrillo’s wet tongue latched softly at your pulse point and ripped a low moan out of you, you closed your eyes again when his hands gripped your ass over the fabric of your jeans.

“Colonel, please,” you muttered, sighing as you felt his large hands had fun with your flesh and grip it after hearing the way you called him.

“Words, querida” he just replied, putting some distance between your wet skin and his lips.

“More,” you bit your lip, Carrillo smirked at you and you noticed the way his eyes darkened with desire in front of you. He turned to look at Javier, who was still standing at the kitchen entrance, palming his erection over his jeans.

“Bring that,” Carrillo said, pointing at the bottle, then slid his hand from your ass to the small of your back and guided you towards the staircase.

Between your hazed eyes and the cloud of lust that had begun to invade your mind you looked around Carrillo’s space and wondered how a man like him could live in a place that big. You smiled to yourself when he put his hand on the small of your back and soon enough Peña caught up to you, you felt his ever so imposing presence behind you.

Carrillo opened the door to the bedroom and pushed you softly inside.

You didn’t even have time to take your surroundings in when you felt a pair of warm hands find your hips and a set of lips grazing at your earlobe. Your eyes closed by themselves and the sweet, strong smell of Javier’s cologne invaded your nostrils as he pulled your back flush against his chest.

“Sh–shit,” you let out, half a whisper, half a moan, when you felt Carrillo’s hands roam around your waist.

You were losing yourself between the touch of the two of them, you shivered when Carrillo cupped your breast as Javier nibbled at the skin of your neck, from behind, you tilted your head to the side to give him more room to do whatever–the–fuck he pleased with your neck.

“Mírate, chiquita,” Carrillo whispered, you felt his breath on your lips and when you re-opened your eyes you saw him inches away from your face “you’re already wrecked.”

You felt Javier chuckling against your flushed skin, and you bit your lower lip, bringing a hand to the Colonel’s nape to pull him closer and kiss him again.

One of Javier’s hands found itself under your shirt, his mouth was moving and his other hand pulled softly at your shirt over your shoulder to find more skin to lick and kiss. Carrillo found the hem of your shirt and broke the kiss to look at you, as if asking for permission and reassurance that you wanted what he wanted. Javier watched the silent exchange and smirked against the skin of your shoulder, he gave it a last brush of his mustache and a last kiss before you nodded to the Colonel and he helped you out of the garment.

Carrillo smiled to himself when he saw what you’ve been hiding under it, a black, only-lace bra that showed the shade of your nipples, you bit your lip again when you took in his disheveled figure, his notorious erection under his military green pants that made the pool between your legs grow.

“How are you this fucking beautiful?” Javier muttered behind you, his mouth leaving a trail of kisses behind your ear to your nape.

Your breath hitched when Carrillo kneeled in front of you and you felt your chest heaving with desire when his large fingers dextrely unbuttoned your jeans and his thumbs hooked on the hem. He looked at you again and you nodded for a second time. Javier looked over your shoulder at the Colonel slowly sliding your jeans off your hips then your legs and he left his hands roam around the now naked skin of your torso. Your hands landed on the back of his head, and he took the hint, attacking the skin of your neck once again.

Carrillo threw your jeans away once he helped you out of them and you moaned loudly when his lips grazed against your knee. One of your hands dropped to grab Carrillo’s head as his trail of kisses moved up, up, up until he reached the soft skin where your thigh and your hip joined. You were sure he could smell your arousal, you were sure he could feel it at that point and you didn’t care, for once you let yourself only feel and let all thought out of your mind while you felt two mouths, two men, take care of you.

There was no hesitation from Javier’s side as his fingers gently grazed up your spine, expertly unclasping your bra, taking in the image of the straps loosening on your smooth skin. He was damn near panting at the mere sight, but he had to remind himself that that was only the tip of the iceberg. The moans you were letting escape your mouth as Carrillo pressed gentle kisses on your inner thighs aided him in no way. He felt himself get harder and harder and fought off raging instincts to turn that moment into another one of his one-night stands.

Javier made sure he tasted your skin while he took the straps from both sides between his fingers and slid them off your shoulders, he felt you shivering under his hands and over Horacio’s mouth and you could feel the smirk on your skin, once the bra came off, Javier took your chin and moved your head to face him, he pressed his mouth on yours, his tongue hungry for your scent, invading your cavities and feeling your warmth rush through his body with the speed of light. Everything about your scent was intoxicating and consuming, and ever so addicting that he could barely find it in himself to stop.

But then his calloused hands found your breasts and oh–oh, shit.

That first squeeze, tantalizingly slow and powerful, took you out completely. You gasped, and you weren’t sure if it was Horacio’s warm breath in between your legs or Javier fondling your breasts, but you embraced the overwhelming effect both had on you. Javier squeezed again, and moved around to locate the sweet torture of his mouth onto your nipples, taking one in his mouth whilst his thumb moved over the other one, twisting it in between his fingers as he nibbled at your skin. His tongue left a glistening trail as he peppered kisses in between your breasts, moving up your sternum, collarbones and neck and focusing on one particular spot that seemed to drive you wild. So much so that you reached behind your back to grab a handful of his hair, pull him in closer however you could.

“Lay her down, Peña,” Carrillo cooed, and the man followed suit.

You saw the Colonel untuck his shirt and take it off while Javier kneeled on the bed and helped you lay down on it, the softness of the sheets embraced you and the coldness made you whimper softly.

It was a premiere for him to witness Javier Peña, of all people, being so submissive and attentive, but he had other matters to focus on at the moment. His mouth left your already glistening and plump lips to grab the bottle of wine, your eyes followed him as you felt Carrillo’s hands spread your legs open and kiss the inside of your legs again, Javier came back to the bed and kneeled next to you, his hand gripping the bottle and the other cupping your face, he smiled softly at you and took a sip from the bottle; you moaned when Carrillo’s hands worked to get you out of your lace panties and Javier leaned down to you, the hand that cupped your face moved to your chin and he opened your mouth with his thumb, letting the wine pour from his mouth to yours, the wine was warm and it tasted sweet, when you closed your mouth and swallowed, Javier’s thumb grazed your lips and you heard a hard pant next to you, you turned to see Carrillo’s lusted face, you gave him a soft smile and he all but threw himself to you, kissing your mound, you moaned again and Javier leaned back, bringing the chilled bottle closer to your body, letting the tip of it graze against your warm skin, between the cold sensation and Carrillo’s lips tasting you, you were about to scream, Javier looked at you, smirked and pour some of the wine all over your breasts and abdomen, immediately reaching down on your again to lick the liquid off. A bit of the wine had traveled down your abdomen to your lower belly and found its way into Carrillos mouth, the feeling of the cold wine and their tongues made you growl. You had two pairs of equally sinful and skilled lips teasing and licking deliciously well over your exposed skin, and you had half of mind to grab either one of them and get to business. You couldn’t recall the last time you felt so aroused, but it was all a masterful torture and all for a good time. If anyone else was allowed to have their downtime, why shouldn’t you?

It was somewhat futile to even attempt to please either one of the men in return; their own pleasure seemed to be revolving around yours and they were both doing such an incredible job out of it that you had a hard time trying to keep track of where did the waves of pleasure come from anymore. It was all one big tsunami of feelings, from overstimulation to lust and appreciation and love in some form.

Carrillo continued his ministrations while Javier licked the remains of the wine from your body, his tongue traveled to your sternum and he took a nipple on his mouth ever so briefly, then he stood up and quickly undressed, not bothering to be cool about it, he just threw his clothes to the floor while he looked at Horacio have the time of his life between your legs, you let out soft moans and whispers and while Javier took off his jeans he saw your hand grip Carrillo’s hair as your hips hatched against the Colonel’s face. You felt his tongue flicking your clit and he pushed a thick finger inside you, curling it around, building you up and throwing you off the cliff with the same force he had put you there. You came on his mouth with his name on yours.

As you laid on the bed, legs spread for Carrillo as he helped you ride off your orgasm, Javier kneeled back on the bed next to your face, his hand snaked its way around your neck, gently grabbing both sides and helping you take his erection in your mouth, which you were more than happy to do. You could tell he was somewhat tensed: he was doing his absolute best to control his motions and to keep it at a normal rhythm, but the more you involuntarily groaned as Carrillo began to glide his tongue across your slit once again, building up your second climax, the more Javier was slowly losing bits and pieces of himself. Within seconds, you could just tell you weren’t gonna last long, but neither would Javier as he picked up the face and jerked his hips forward more and more, thus obliging you to take more of him in. You couldn’t explain it, nor find any logic behind the action itself, but you swore you felt his release in Javier’s impatient thrusts and, sure enough, mere seconds later, he finally came, grunting as ropes of his seed dripped down your jaw.

Your moans returned when Carrillo added two fingers to his mouthy torture over your clit, and you felt like you could explode. Not long after that all-too familiar gut feeling, that almost persistent desire to burn, you came for a second time, eager to jerk your hips forward and meet as much as you could of Carrillo’s tongue, but this time, the man’s grip over your thighs was impossible to break. He held you in place ever so expertly and ate you out like you were his favorite five course meal, soaking up every ounce of juice that you provided him with.

You temporarily lost feeling in your arms as you tried to raise them to make at least Javier pay attention, but words also failed to leave your abused mouth.

“Que buena chica,” Carrillo said from somewhere down below. (What a good girl.)

Your brain didn’t register what he said properly. All you could feel was a fire so intense, so vivid, you nearly saw stars. And something told you that was only the beginning.

And you were proven right.

In the momentary lack of physical touch, you thought about the moment itself, having two of the strongest, most desirable men eager to please you–simultaneously, might you add–and the more you thought about it, the more it threw you off completely. Why? You weren’t really sure. Perhaps it was the idea in the back of your mind that you wouldn’t have thought yourself capable of that. Or them, really. The activity hadn’t been exactly on your to-do list over the past few years and yet now, you couldn’t have thought of a better way to figure out your feelings for them, and to spare time.

The freshly acquired ecstasy was not only enthralling, but efficient as well.

After your second orgasm at Horacio’s ministrations you saw him between your lusted, narrowed eyes, undress completely, Javier was next to you, trailing his fingers up and down your wet torso–wet with wine and his saliva, what a fucking thought– while the both of you saw Carrillo take the remains of his clothes off and took in his lean figure, Javier smirked when he saw him whole and thought to himself the things he would do to the man if he had the time.

Javier wrapped his arms around your waist and helped you roll over to the side to face him, licking his bottom lip in the process and made sure you watched as he did so. He had been eyeing you up and down the entire day, whether clothed or not, and every glance he threw you, ever so dark and desirable, filled with subtext and desire, made you weaker and weaker, just like Carrillo’s touches were.

You reached his face and took his lips in yours, his tongue slid inside your mouth and as he explored the insides and his hand grabbed fistfuls of your ass, you felt the bed shifting behind you, and another hand snaked from behind and found your breast, you were being pressed against and between two bodies and the wam of them was driving you insane, when Carrillo’s fingers played with your nipple you bucked your hips forward and you felt Javier’s erection graze at your lower belly. Javier moved his hand from your ass to your thigh and then he let it slide to your pussy, you bucked your hips backwards and you felt Carrillo’s erection graze at your ass.

“How are you still this wet, bonita?” Javier asked, while his fingers found themselves between your lips.

“Don’t you know the answer by now, Javi?” you muttered, feeling the way Carrillo’s mouth found your shoulders.

You glanced at him and Carrillo the same way Javier looked at you and you understood in an instant why he always preferred to be that way. It was enticing, addicting and sinful, just the way he was.

And by the looks of it, Colonel Horacio Carrillo was no saint either.

“How do you want this to go, chiquita?” Horacio asked behind you as you moved your leg up to allow Javier’s fingers to find a way inside you.

You sighed. Why was he asking you that question when you weren’t even sure something like this would happen? For a brief, brief second you wanted to hide, just grab your clothes and hide. But you found yourself sandwiched between the men that you most desired and you just couldn’t waste this opportunity for the life of you.

So you rummaged around your deepest, filthiest fantasies you’ve had when everything had just been a sinful dream, a product of your lascive thoughts giving into what you catalogued as your darkest secrets and desires and you found one you couldn’t stop think about after it had given you a stars–behind–the–eyes orgasm.

“I want both,” you muttered, feeling the way both men groaned at your sides, “both inside me, please.”

“You sure?” Javier asked, pulling out his fingers from your cunt and looking at the way they glistened, you nodded.

“Words, chiquita,” Horacio said and you turned to see him, he leaned down and stole a short, deep kiss.

“I’m a hundred percent sure,” you murmured against the Colonel’s lips.

“Let’s get you ready, then,” Javier whispered on your neck and you sighed when his fingers slid back into your slit, you closed your eyes when Horacio played your nipples around his fingers and then his hand roamed down your body, finding their way to your pussy.

“Déjame entrar,” Horacio said under his breath, Javier stopped moving his fingers inside you and you squeezed your eyes tighter when Carrillo slid two more fingers inside your cunt.

“Fu–fuck, fuck,” you gasped, Javier let open mouthed kisses around your face and the skin of your neck within reach while your walls tightened around their thick fingers.

“You okay?” Javier asked and you nodded a few times before your body relaxed and got used to the intrusion.

“Mo–move,” you pleaded, feeling Horacio’s mouth nibbling at your shoulder and your neck.

Javier and Horacio moved their fingers at the same time inside you, looking at each other as if marking a dancing pace. You didn’t know what to do with yourself as they moved in and out and curled their fingers in all directions inside you, making you moan and whimper and open up more for them as they somehow found an identical pace to torture you with.

“Eso, eso nena, lo estás haciendo muy bien,” Carrillo praised behind you, feeling the way your walls were giving into the attention and dilating around their fingers (That’s it baby, you’re doing great)

“Más,” you pleaded, rolling your hips against their hands “Más, más,”

They grinned at each other, Javier’s eyes landed on your face and took in the way your features quirked in pure pleasure. Their fingers moving at the same time, pacing in and out faster. Javier’s mouth landed on your shoulder and Carrillo only took in the lewd noise his and Javier’s fingers were making as they pulled in and out at a murdering pace.

“Oh, sh–shit,” you bit your lip and tried to hide your face inside the crook of Javier’s neck but Horacio pulled you away with his other hand.

“We wanna hear you, querida.” he whispered behind your ear, you shivered again at the feeling of his warm breath and then it became too much, their fingers were covered in your arousal as you spread your legs impossibly wider as your throat began growling and your hands landed on both of them, digging your nails on their flesh. Javier hissed against your shoulder and Carrillo bit the skin of your mouth, both of them throwing you together from the cliff and your body spasmed between them.

“Oh my god, oh shit, fuck!” you screamed between their bodies and they slowed their pace to help you ride down your climax “please, please, fuck me, please,” you let out, almost desperately, eager to feel the same with them inside you. They slid their fingers out of you and you shivered again.

Your body was already a mess, after three powerful orgasms you were panting for air, the only thing you wanted was them inside you, you wanted to feel every ridge and every vein of them, you wanted; you needed to cum around them both.

“What is taking you so long?” you opened your eyes, quite frustrated at the lack of attention to your bodies, but the sight that you took in was otherworldly.

Carrillo had his fingers, his covered–in–your–arousal fingers inside Javier’s mouth.

“Fuck,” you let out, dropping your head on the mattress, looking at the way Javier grabbed Horacio’s wrist to keep his hand on his mouth and lick them clean of you while Horacio’s deep gaze took Javier in with a smirk adorning his face.

Horacio pulled his fingers out with a soft pop and they both looked at you, panting and brushing a nipple with your fingers.

“Next time you’ll have to put on a show for me,” you teased.

“You’re ready?” Javier asked, leaning down to kiss your temple, you looked at Carrillo and smiled at him as he licked his fingers.

“Very,” you replied, softly, your voice was already hoarse because of the moaning and screaming they had pulled out of you, they got comfortable on each of your side and you took a deep breath when Horacio lifted your leg and hooked it on his hip.

Javier was the first one to tease your entrance with the dripping head of his cock, when you felt it sliding up and down your slit you gasped and as he pushed himself inside you you grabbed his arm and licked any part of his skin available for you.

“Oh my god,” you cried out softly.

Javier was having a hard time staying still when your walls were warm and wet around him, his hands roamed around your body as Carrillo lined himself with you and him as well and then he pushed.

“Holy fucking shit,” you had close your eyes at the feeling of Horacio making his way inside of you, you breathed and panted and tried so hard to relaxe but they were thicker than their fingers and your pussy was clenching already around them. Javier took your hand and you squeezed his as both of them bottomed up inside you.

Horacio put his hands over the entanglement of yours and Javi’s and the three of you gasped and panted until your body stopped squirming between them and your walls stopped closing themselves at the feeling of two thick cocks making their way inside.

Javier had to close his eyes as well when he felt how your cunt clenched him tight closer to Horacio and he felt himself throb inside you, when he opened his eyes he saw you, open mouthed gasps leaving your body as it got used to being that full, and then his eyes traveled to Horacio, that buried himself in the crook of your neck, he supposed he was feeling the same way as him, trapped in a oh–so–tight hole with him.

“Move, move, move,” you all but begged, the initial sting of being filled like that disappearing and being replaced with the darkest, deepest, hottest desire you had ever felt, “fu–fucking move already!”

Horacio smirked against the skin of your neck at your demand and moved slightly to look at Javier, who nodded once and then, murdering pleasure; Javier pulled out and as he was thrusting slowly back in, Horacio pulled out and moved in as Javier moved out and you gasped and the air in your lungs left you for the time being as your cunt was filled with the two men you wanted the most.

It was pleasure delivered in a delicious swing of two hips rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth into you, making you impossibly wetter, incredibly hornier, and way too lost in the haze to even care about anything else.

The way that they were fucking you was shameless, the noises were lewd and your moans invaded the room as soon as they picked up the pace and kept driving into you at the same pace but in different directions.

Four hands caressed your body, two sets of lips nibbled at your skin, two tongues tasted the salty sheet of sweat that had covered your body, two thick cocks used your body at their will, making you want to explode; it was an eager combination of feelings and sensations pulled out of the most sensual, lechery, degenerated dreams you could ever had.

“Harder, please, pleasepleaseplease,” you panted out, gripping any skin and limb your hands could find. Your hips started rolling and rolling and rolling with them as they thrusted and pounded inside you.

“Mierda,” Horacio gasped behind you, biting at your skin, making you whimper.

“You’re so fucking tight, so fu–fucking good, baby,” Javier cried out as your pussy clenched around them and you absentmindedly rolled your hips harder.

It was an entanglement of limbs and wet skin, mouths clashing against skin, hands gripping and grabbing available flesh, a swing of bodies and a symphony of licks, kisses, hums, gasps, pants, begs and praises.

“Shit, sh–shit,” you panted harder and clawed at Javier’s arm when you felt the well-familiar tug on your belly of an incoming orgasm, you hummed and moaned and you felt lips in your ear, licking and nibbling at your earlobe, “I’m so close, más,”

Javier gritted his teeth when you demanded more and angled his hips to pound inside harder, Horacio followed his lead, dropping his hand on Javier’s shoulder for leverage. Carrillo’s touch burned in Javier’s skin and he felt his body stiffen with the feeling of his second release.

“Por dios, querida, me estás matando.” Horacio cried out behind you, feeling as well his body falling from the cliff. (My god, you’re killing me)

Javier’s free hand slid through your wet, glistening skin and his finger circled your clit slowly, you screamed his name, your legs buckled and your entire body squirmed with the sea of sensations your body was feeling and flooding with.

“Cum inside me, please, please,” you panted again, feeling the way your legs started to shake as both of their thrust became erratic and Javier’s finger kept circling around your bundle of nerves you exploded around them, gushing out and soaking them as your orgasm made you scream both their names.

“Mierda, querida, mírate,” Horacio grunted before he gave into the lustfulness of it all and came inside you and around Javier.

Once Javi felt the warmness of Carrillo’s release and the way you soaked both of them and his hand, he locked his hips with yours and spilled himself inside as well, gasping out your name.

“Ohmyfuckinggod,” you let out as a sigh, feeling your legs tremble with the strength of your climax.

The three of you stayed like that, joined, for a while. As your bodies relaxed you finally opened your eyes and saw the way Horacio’s hand was resting on Javier’s shoulder, wrapping you as well between them. Both of them breathing heavily, eyes closed, recovering from whatever the hell you had done was called. You sighed and smiled to yourself. If it weren’t for the four orgasms you had and the way your cunt was throbbing after the abuse and dripping with their seed, you wouldn’t believe it was real at all.

“How was that, cariño?” Javier asked, grazing a hand up and down your arm.

“That was–magnificent,” you gushed, not sure how else to describe that positively euphoric experience, “I think–you two have worn me out.”

Horacio chuckled and moved your head to press a kiss to your forehead, and shifted to allow all three of you to lie somewhat comfortably under the covers. You whined when they pulled out of you, solely because at the loss of them, you felt empty.

“Rest now, querida, we’ll be here in the morning,” he whispered into your hair, and that was all the permission you needed.

“We should–” you brought a hand to your mouth to cover a massive yawn, “–do this again sometime.”

After that, it didn’t take long before you had succumbed to the tempting pull of sleep. Horacio sighed and glanced over your shoulder at Javier, who looked rather worn out himself. Tenderly, Horacio reached over and brushed aside a small strand of hair that had fallen in Javi’s face.

“So, same time next week, then?” Horacio asked, giving Javier a lazy smirk, which was returned in kind.

“Yeah,” Javier mumbled, turning over to drape his arm around your way and bury his face in your neck.

“Absolutely.”

let me know if you wanna be removed :)

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[queridopascal]

what if reader wants a baby but javi is against cos all the narcos thing so reader keeps sneaking to connie to play/take care of the baby and javi finds out?? im sorry i just love a angst fluffy 😔 loveya

Warning: angst, hint to depression, fluff

A/N: sorry, I live for happy endings!

You love babies, always have: their giggles, their squishy cheeks, their tiny feet - everything.

Javier, on the contrary, was frightened at the idea, just the thought of something bad happening to them was what led him to his decision of not wanting to have kids.

You understood his choice and respected it: you loved Javier with all your heart, but didn't want to force him to want the same things as you, you knew he'd be miserable and feel trapped in a life that didn't belong to him.

When you heard that Steve and Connie had adopted Olivia, you felt immensely happy for them. You went to their place a couple of times a week to have a coffee and a chat with Connie and to play a little with Olivia.

"You're really a natural." Connie sat right beside you on the carpet where you were playing with their kid.

"She's adorable." you smiled, sadly, and Connie noticed.

"Is everything alright?"

"Yeah." you sighed and nodded, but she wasn't having it.

"Hey, I've known you for a while now. You can talk to me."

And so, you did. You told her about how you wished to have a baby with Javier, how you imagined them to have his brown eyes and his dark hair, how you'd dress them in those cute leotards, how you'd buy them all the newest toys and how you'd want to spoil them.

Connie would let you come over in the evening sometimes, when both Steve and Javier where on missions, and you'd spend the evening playing and taking care of Olivia.

Apparently, Connie had told Steve about those evenings, and he had then told Javier.

"I know you want to become a mom," he caressed your cheek "but I can't give you that, not here in Colombia. And I'm sorry."

"B-but... "

Javier pulled you to him, and you placed your face on his shoulder as he held you in his arms.

"It's too dangerous here," he exhaled "and I don't want to get a piece of heaven and then get it taken away from me, I don't think I could live with it."

You remained silent and mulled over his words again and again; and the more you thought about it, the more it made sense.

"I..." he began, breathing out shakily "I don't want to keep you from your dreams, I really don't want to. So... I'm telling you that if you want to leave and go have the life you wish for, you can."

"Javi, what the..."

"I'm serious. You deserve to be happy."

"But I don't want to be happy with anyone else but you, Javi." tears streamed down your cheeks "I'd rather give up on one of my wishes than be with somebody else."

"Why?" he opened his arms "Give me one reason."

"Because I love you, Javi." you sobbed "And when you care about someone, you have to make sacrifices."

Javier felt horrible. He loved you too, he loved you like he had never loved anyone before. He thought about what he had told you for the whole night and for the entirety of his day at work.

You'd spent the day in your bed, refusing to leave it, you didn't even eat.

And when Javier came home from work and found you still there, he felt a pain in his chest and a knot in his throat.

"Hey," he sat down on the edge of the bed, right by your side "you okay?"

You nodded silently and he caressed your cheek with the back of his hand.

"I'm sorry for what I said last night." he sighed.

You closed your eyes for a moment, relishing in the soothing warmth of his touch.

"I've been thinking about it all day and... I don't want you to give up on your greatest wish." he swallowed, his eyes meeting yours "And I've come to realize that... maybe... we could try, I can try."

You opened your eyes, stunned and shocked.

"Are you sure?" you sat up, tears already pooling at the corners of your eyes.

Javier nodded and smiled at you, one of the most sincere smiles you'd have seen on his face, then touched your foreahed with his.

"I want you by my side, and I want you to be happy by my side." he cupped your face "We can go back to the US and... start a family there. I promise I'll try my best to be a good father. "

{2 YEARS LATER}

"Princesita, I missed you so much!"

Javier picks her up in his arms and kisses her cheek, she plays with his tie and giggles.

"And I missed you too, mi amor." he walks over to you with Rosalía in his arms and kisses you on the lips.

PERMANENT TAGLIST: @sleep-tight1 @mssbridgerton @imcalledflorence @withakindheartx @emmy626 @greeneyedblondie44 @myguiltypleasures21 @pedroverse @donnaa @snow30285 @computeringturtle @sugahunnynoicetea @lilpopizzle @hnt-escape @sara-alonso @darnitdraco @larakazzer @carstwirs @agingerindenial @heythere-mel @phoenixhalliwell @tobealostwanderer @radiowallet @evelynseventyr @thatgirlselectryc @princess76179 @hb8301 @jeeperky @jenrebloggingfics @jasterslegacy @kestrelmando @miulola @elegantduckturtle @aana4664 @shadowolf993

JAVI TAGLIST: @xjsteph @bastillealmighty @startrekkingaroundasgard

[just-here-for-the-moment]

For the DIFFERENT POV GAME:

I want Javi’s POV on this whole adorable scene.

Okay, my Queen @quica-quica-quica, I want you to know that I suuuuucked in a huge breath when I saw this Ask, because I was entirely unsure if I could do this. It seemed like a really hard challenge, but FOR YOU I’ll try anything.

I dug in to see what I could do, and of course because I can’t just write succinctly I had to start waaaaaay back in the beginning of the story to get Javier where I needed him for the phone number scene… hope that’s okay!!

Thank you for challenging me this way! This went from scary to amazing in just a few days! I love you so much, my friend!!!

---

Coffee Shop Girl (a companion piece to “For Now” told from Javier’s point of view)

Word count: 3000+

Rating: mature, 18+ only

Outline: Javier Peña x “You” (Austin coffee shop barista; cis/het female reader; “blank canvas”/no physical description/no name/no use of “Y/N”)

Warnings: slow-burn; references to previous hiring of sex workers; cigarette smoking; Javier masturbating

Javier Peña felt like he was at loose ends. Not for the first time in his life, but it’s different feeling ‘lost’ as a young man than feeling ‘lost’ when you’re on the wrong side of 40. At least a teenager can still expect their whole life ahead of them. Since leaving the DEA and the fight in Colombia behind, he had been feeling directionless.

Spending some time at his dad’s ranch in Laredo had helped, the way that hard labor and sweat always does. It left him too tired to ruminate, to sink into the blues and feel sorry for himself. He had lined up a teaching job at a university in D.C. but it didn’t start until the fall semester, and Javier wasn’t looking forward to an entire blazing-hot summer on the ranch. So when his friend Bill called from Austin and offered a short contract job doing consulting for one of the state agencies, he jumped at the chance.

Javier landed at Mueller Airport at 2:00 in the afternoon on the second Saturday in June. He made his way out of luggage pickup to the Hertz desk and signed for a rental car. It didn’t take him long to find the apartment complex where Bill had arranged for him to stay. Bill’s coworker’s son had graduated from UT Austin in May, and the lease wasn’t up until August, so everything worked out perfectly. Javi could sublet for the remainder of the summer, and the apartment complex was close enough to the office that he could take the bus, meaning he wouldn’t have to put too many miles on the rental car or pay for parking downtown. A small, blandly furnished one-bedroom apartment near work was perfect. He could make it work for two months, and he had certainly lived in much worse places during his years traveling.

On Monday Javier was introduced around the office and given his portfolio of cases to consult on. He also found out that the coffee in the office was total shit. He had spent too many years drinking government-grade slop at the DEA and other agencies to put up with it now. He wasn’t one to complain, or to order any of the frilly new designer coffee drinks that seemed to be making the rounds among the ladies in the secretarial pool, but he had noticed a coffee shop between here and the bus stop. Some local place, one of those Austin things where they boasted about fair trade and locally roasted beans. If they made a decent cup of black coffee he could splurge, buy a cup on his way into the office each day.

The bus dropped him off at the corner at 7:45, so he could grab a coffee and still be on time to work at 8:00. Punctuality wasn’t always his strong suit, but Javier wanted to at least make a good impression while he was consulting. You never knew who might be a network contact to something good, and he didn’t want to screw Bill over after he had recommended him for the contract.

Tuesday Javier tried the coffee shop and found out that their coffee was not only decent for the price, it was actually good. Wednesday he went back again, this time brushing fingers with the pretty barista by accident. He offered her a “thanks” and then went on his way. Thursday he walked in and stood patiently in line behind two stoner kids trying to make up their minds between breakfast tacos and blueberry muffins. The pretty barista was there again, and she waved him over with a smile, indicating he could skip to the counter and leave the hippie kids in line.

“Black coffee, right?” Her smile actually reached her eyes, and for a moment Javier was very glad for all of the body language and psychology classes he had ever had to sit through. It was nice having a pretty lady smile at you to start your morning, and even better that this one already knew his order. She was quick, he figured, and good at her job if she had his order memorized after only two days as a customer. Not that ‘black coffee, to go’ was a difficult order, but he hadn’t expected to become a regular so quickly.

He smiled and nodded, “That’s right. Thank you.” He looked for a wedding ring and then for a nametag on her black apron, but didn’t see either one. He slid a rumpled $5 bill across the counter, larger than the singles he had paid with the previous two days, but she was nice. “Keep the change.”

He thought he saw her bite her lip as she turned away, and while she was fixing his cup he took a moment to check her out. He wasn’t some kind of pervert who would goose her from over the counter, but from what he could see she was attractive. Hell, most women were attractive to Javier. He suddenly realized it had been a while since he’d gotten laid. His last relationship was years past, and he no longer visited prostitutes regularly. Javier wasn’t a ‘reformed man’ by any means, it was just that that habit had been limited to a specific time and place in his life where he wasn’t stable enough to have a long-term relationship, and it had the added bonus of gathering intelligence.

The barista turned back to him with the cup and when she handed it off their eyes locked and their fingers touched again. He saw her pupils dilate and recognized the little spark that turned over in his own gut. Damn, she really was attractive. But Javier didn’t want to be the kind of lecherous guy who hit on a woman while she was working. Too many men mistook the minimum of customer service friendliness for a sexual invitation. Or worse, like the men who hit on waitresses on purpose since they couldn’t be outright rude to stop them. Javier suppressed a smile and took the cup from her, nodding his thanks.

On Friday when he breezed into the coffee shop he saw the pretty barista smile from behind the counter, and she immediately turned and started pouring his to-go cup. She turned back and gave him the ‘what’s up’ chin nod while holding his cup up. Javier walked up and he slid a few singles across the counter to her.

Javier gave her a warm, “Thanks,” and winked at her. That was at least a harmless bit of flirting, in line with her bright smiles and her friendliness so far. If she liked it, great; and if not, then at least he hadn’t made her uncomfortable by asking for her number or hitting on her directly. When he said, “See you next week,” she smiled that bright smile back. Javier noticed that it again reached her eyes, lighting them up just a bit more than last time. A good sign.

The weekend dragged but Javier filled it up with errands: a run to HEB for groceries and to Highland Mall for a new shirt. If there was the possibility of a date sometime in the next few weeks he at least wanted to wear something other than his work clothes. Saturday night he ordered pizza and watched a movie on TV, some lame action movie with giant muscled guys shooting way too many bullets, and of course all the curse words and a sex scene edited out for network TV. Can’t let the kiddies hear the word ‘shit’ while they’re flipping channels, but watching Stallone blow a guy’s head off is good for their growing brains. He finished his pizza and a cigarette and then felt that tug, the loose ends, a little bored.

Javier took a shower and his mind went to the pretty barista, that smile, the sparkly eyes. He thought about those eyes looking up at him through her lashes, or down at him from on top. He wondered what her skin felt like, imagining the rest of her naked, spread out, touching him all over. He felt a little bit creepy touching himself to the thought of her, hoping it didn’t make him a bad person, hoping he would see her again on Monday. But fuck it, he needed the release. Javier came, spurting hot in the steamy shower as he leaned his head on his forearm and groaned into the cold tile wall. He wished he at least knew her name.

Sunday Javier slept in and then did laundry, tidied up the apartment, and took a jog around the neighborhood. He tried to talk himself out of a repeat of Saturday’s shower. It didn’t work.

On Monday Javier lit up as soon as he stepped off the bus. The first week of the consulting gig had gone well, but today was a big meeting and he knew the agency was not going to like his recommendations. He was constantly trying to quit, but at least he had cut back recently. He was down to a pack a day and only one cup of coffee. That had to count for something, right? Maybe his doctor would finally get off his back about that.

He smoked as rapidly as he could on his way to the coffee shop, and stubbed the cigarette out as soon as he reached the big window that overlooked the street corner. He tucked his sunglasses into the top pocket of his blazer and opened the door to the coffee shop.

The pretty barista was smiling, looking right at him and already holding up his cup of coffee like a game show model holding a prize. Javier felt his heart give a little squeeze, and he smiled and winked at her again as he approached the counter.

“You psychic or something? Or am I just that predictable?”

“Both, maybe.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him and gave him a toothy grin.

Javier opened his wallet and saw that his smallest bill was a $10, but he decided not to ask for change back. She was attentive to her customers, she had surprised him by having coffee ready, and she was cute. “Great service, keep the change.”

Her face lit up and she turned to put the money in the register. Javier turned and exited the front door, and then decided to look back through the big plate glass window. She was looking at him, and Javier realized that meant that she had watched him leave. He hoped he wouldn’t have to tip $10 every time to get that look. He lifted his cup, nodded at her, and then made his way to the office.

Tuesday she had his coffee ready again, so he gave her another wink with his smile, and he thought that she purposely put her fingers in a spot to touch his as she handed the cup over. He paid with a $5 bill again, and then thought about her smile and her touch all the way to the office a few blocks north. He didn’t want her to think that the overtipping was him trying to come on to her; it really was nice to have his order ready to go every day.

On Wednesday she had his coffee ready again as soon as he walked in, but Javier supposed that was a testament to the bus schedule more than his own punctuality. This time he paid with singles. But he didn’t want her to think the smaller tip was because of anything wrong with her customer service, so he smiled a little more warmly, turning the charm up as much as he dared without just outright hitting on her. He noticed she was looking again through the glass as he left. But of course the only reason he knew that was because he had looked, too.

On Thursday Javier decided that it wouldn’t hurt to flirt a little more obviously, but to give her an out in case she wasn’t interested. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable or fuck up his supply of good coffee, so he decided to take it a little slow. When he got to the corner he glanced into the window of the coffee shop and saw the pretty barista looking right at him. He took that as a good sign that she might be receptive to his flirting. He opened the door and let someone exit, then walked up to the counter. She pointed at his cup sitting on the counter in front of her, smiling that bright smile.

He arched an eyebrow up. “You trying to get rid of me? In and out so quickly?”

She grinned at him. “Depends on how long you were planning to stay. We close at 1:00 a.m. after open mic tonight. After that you gotta go somewhere else.” That was the most that she’d spoken to him yet. Javier decided to take his chance.

“And what time do you get off, after the morning shift?”

“Depends on who’s asking.” She winked and then bit the inside of her lips, like she had said something she shouldn’t have.

Javier decided to be direct. At least that would give her the chance to say ‘no’ if she wasn’t interested. He locked eyes with her and said, “I am.”

He was relieved to see her flash that big smile, all pretty soft lips and sparkly eyes. “I finish at 1:00, after the lunch rush.”

“Good to know.” He stuck his hand out to shake. “I’m Javier, by the way.” She continued to smile as she gave him her name. When she took his hand she gave a good firm shake, not like one of those women who went limp as soon as they shook a man’s hand. Javier liked her even more.

He fished a few bills out of his wallet. “Can I maybe stop by after your shift, take you to lunch sometime?”

“You can do me one better than that.” She reached down to grip the lid and spun the cup. He saw her name and seven digits scribbled in Sharpie. “My phone number’s on the cup.”

Javier gave her the eyebrows, very much enjoying how direct she was. It was nice to get a clear signal from a pretty lady, instead of having to play guessing games and worry about overstepping. He pursed his lips and nodded in approval.

“You do that for all your customers?”

“Just the best tippers.” And there was her pretty smile and her wink again, so soon after the first one.

Javier decided to give her both barrels. He put his hand out again, palm up instead of a handshake. When she put her hand in his he lifted her knuckles to his lips and pressed a soft kiss, giving her a look from under his eyelashes before he let go.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Javier picked up the cup and left, and gave her a warm smile through the glass as he walked away. As soon as he got to the office he jotted her name and the number on a scrap of paper and tucked it into his wallet. He felt hopeful in a way that he hadn’t for a long time, and he rolled the cup endlessly between his palms while he considered his options. Options. Something he sometimes had taken for granted in life, until those moments where they suddenly ran out.

Javier drained the last of the coffee and then scribbled over her number with a Sharpie before tossing the cup in the trash. No sense in letting her number out into the world where some creep might find it. He smoked his third cigarette of the day out on the plaza and thought about her smile, the brush of her fingers on his, the way she approached him directly. He could use a friend in town, one who wasn’t a guy at the agency or an old college buddy. One who was soft and sweet and might be open to a date… or more. He checked his watch and calculated the hours until 1:00 p.m.

Normally he wouldn’t go back to the coffee shop until tomorrow morning, but it wouldn’t hurt to pop back over there today at the end of her shift, see if she wanted to grab lunch, right? He hoped it wouldn’t scare her off, going back so quickly. He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray by the lobby door and jogged back up to his office, taking the stairs two at a time. He wanted to finish up, get this meeting over with, see if he could get over to the coffee shop before she left. He sat in the meeting, watching the clock hands spin slowly, listening to someone drone on about a budget issue that didn’t impact his work, and which could have been a memo in the first place. He felt his irritation creep up the longer the meeting went on.

Finally the meeting closed and Javier hopped to his feet. He told Bill he was headed to lunch and then jogged back down the stairwell instead of waiting for the elevator. He walked the few blocks to the coffee shop, keeping an eye on his watch. He hoped he wouldn’t miss her.

When he got to the coffee shop he opened the door and let his eyes adjust to the dim light for a moment. And then he saw her, slinging her bag over one shoulder and coming out from behind the counter. Javier smiled.

She stopped a foot away and smiled softly, “Hey.”

Javier realized he was still wearing his sunglasses, no wonder it was so dark. He took them off and slipped them into his blazer pocket. He really hoped she wouldn’t think it was weird, him coming back so soon.

“Hey, I’m glad I caught you. Are you busy, or can I take you to lunch today?”

Her face lit up. Good sign. “No, I’m not busy. I’d love to go.”

She gestured out the big window, “There’s a sandwich place around the corner, and a park we can go sit in.”

Javier felt his face split into a wide grin. “That’s perfect.”

---

Just-here-for-the-moment’s masterlist

The only tag list I have: @quica-quica-quica @anaaaispunk @justanotherblonde23 @gracie7209 @nicolethered @honestly-shite @driedgreentomatoes @dihra-vesa @1800-fight-me @the-queen-of-fools @juletheghoul @kesskirata @honeymandos @silverwolf319 @mourningbirds1 @greeneyedblondie44 @spacedilf @maxwell–lord @anxiousandboujee @cevvie @sherala007 @writeforfandoms @libellule2001 @deadhumourist @mandoalorian @javierpinme @eri16 @mandocrasis

[djarinbarnes]

me olvidarás - two

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Pairings: Javier Peña x female reader

Warnings for the chapter: charming javi. (yes he needs his own warning) kissing. making out. doubtful javi. curse words. in thoughts. flirting. a lot of it.

Word count: 5.2k

Summary: an undeniable warm summer vacation in Bogotá. simply trying to get away from your nosey, boring parents and live for once, you meet a man who impresses you beyond where your imagination could ever take you.

a/n: the slow burn is here. ugh.

previous chapter · series masterlist

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You made your way through the stuffy bar, eager to finally try a Colombian specialty of a drink. You had done some researching from home, and it excited you. You knew you wanted to try the traditional aguardiente you had read about, and that was exactly what you were going to try.

You propped your elbows onto the counter of the bar, liquids smearing against your elbows as you leaned over the bar to place your order to the bartender. With a nod directed toward you, he places the shot in front of you.

It’s clear as water and with shaky hands you empty the shot into your mouth. It’s strong in your mouth, and you wince slightly at the taste of anise lingering on your tongue. You’re not used to the heaviness of anise and liqueur in this way, and with an intake of breath you’re coughing roughly, having inhaled the fumes stuck in your mouth.

You wince as you hear a voice beside you, flagging down the bartender to get you something to take the edge off your coughing. The music is loud in your ears and you feel slightly uncomfortable in the given situation. You smile warily when something bubbly and orange is placed in front of you, a straw being presented to your lips.

You open them reluctantly before taking a big sip of orange soda. You sigh in content before you take another sip, feeling the way the stranger beside you is eyeing you up and down. You feel the stranger’s eyes linger on your exposed ribcage, barely covered by the silver, glittering low-cut top you’re wearing over your bralette.

“First time tasting guaro?” His voice is smooth as velvet, the words rolling off his lips sensually as he brings his elbow to the bar, leaning his chin against the palm of his hand, watching you as you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand.

For the first time, you turn and look at him. And holy shit. The white button-down he’s wearing is neat, very neat, the mustache on his upper lip so perfectly groomed, his brown eyes watching you intensely as you stand there, possibly looking like a fish out of water - gaping and lacking breaths.

He’s hot, beautiful even, and you’re easily taken aback by the way he moves when he orders a double whiskey for himself. His hair is slightly unruly - tousled to what you would call something between perfect and what would be left after hands had run through it under… Stop it. He’s a stranger, for god’s sake. You bite your lip, trying to slowly compose yourself as he looks away, bringing a stray strand of hair behind your ear.

“First time in Colombia,” you tell him and take another sip of the soda he’s bought you. The right side of his lips draw up slightly as he nods and you feel a surge of heat go straight from your heart, into your cunt. God damn it he was a sight for sore eyes.

“You up for anything else than a shot of guaro and soda?” You can’t tell if he’s teasing or not, with the way one of his eyebrows raises as he turns back to you, but you shrug slightly before moving a tad closer to him, to hear him better over the noisiness of the bar.

“If you’re offering to show me what’s good, then I’m not one to decline.” You retort with a sly smile, grinning inwardly when he braces himself slightly against the bar. You watch as he flags down the bartender yet again, ordering something you don’t hear over the music.

You blink slightly when another six shots are placed in front of you, slightly scaring you. Was he trying to get you drunk and take advantage of you? You weren’t really sure, but… you decided now was the time to get drunk with a stranger in a stuffy bar in a city you just landed in.

“Three for you, three for me.” He says as he moves two at a time, three toward you and three toward himself. “Let me know what you think.” You grasp the first shot in between your fingers at the same time as him and bring it up to your lips simultaneously with him. Then you halt.

“Wait.” You stop, still holding the shot by your lips. You watch as he raises his eyebrow just once, yet again, as if it was the twitch of a muscle. “I don’t even know your name.”

He smirks before letting out a short puff of laughter, shaking his head slightly. You pout slightly at his reaction before you decide to defend yourself. “What? I wanna know the name of the handsome stranger whom I’m about to get drunk with.”

His teeth tug his bottom lip between them swiftly, before you both down your shots at the same time, maintaining eye contact through the whole ordeal. He leans in closer to your ear to shield his words from the noise. You can smell the alcohol radiating between the two of you - you’re not sure if it’s your own breath or his - but it’s good. New. Exciting.

“I’m Javi.”

─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────

You have no recollection of how much time you and Javi spend at the bar. The two of you hit it off so easily, like you’d known each other for a long time. Maybe it was the alcohol continuously spilling in between you, or the fact that he was charming and transparent with you.

You learned that he was pushing 40, had worked at the Colombian embassy for a couple of years as an agent in the Drug Enforcement Administration, and was currently on leave after a gunshot to the shoulder. He told you it barely hurt anymore, but you definitely noticed slower movements from his injured shoulder.

You also learned he hated being on leave, and that he was better off working his days away than relaxing and being bored, as he said so himself. It was a very last-minute idea he’d gotten, to go out on a Wednesday evening to get drunk, but he made it clear that it was more than worth it.

He told you about how toe-curling he found the telenovelas constantly playing on the only three channels his tv could take in his building, how he almost only listened to American artists like Lionel Richie and Prince (even though The Supremes were his favorites) and how he always had a cup of coffee before and after every meal.

With the number of cigarettes he smoked, you wondered how he was able to keep his shirts so white. Every time he put out one, barely five minutes passed before he’d lit another. You wondered where they kept coming from - if he had a whole carton on him, just for the sake of it. You remembered hearing somewhere that smoking excessively would leave awful stains on everything, but so far, you didn’t see where that statement was coming from.

You told him about yourself too, and how boring you found your parents to be. He laughed with you as you told him one of the most embarrassing moments you had experienced with your parents, which they hadn’t found embarrassing at all.

How you had trouble finding someone like-minded like you. You told him how you hated when your parents would set you up with whomever friends’ sons, they were meeting, as if they could find a perfect fit for you to date.

That was one of the main reasons you hadn’t had a boyfriend yet. Because there just weren’t any alluring men in your city that could be a potential man for you. They were just boys. You weren’t even sure they had proper knowledge about the female genitalia.

You told him that your favorite book was none other than the classic Pride and Prejudice, how you’d read Jane Eyre more than ten times because of the storyline Jane has, which you find so heartbreakingly beautiful, and how you sort of relate to it.

You also tell him about how hard it is getting through uni as an English Lit major, with the period you’ve just finished. “Right now, I hate the renaissance. I mean… Shakespeare is amazing and all but analyzing so many of his works in tow of each other is just tiring.” You sigh and take another sip of the rum and coke in front of you. Javi is listening to you intently, watching your every move as you explain.

“I mean, Cervantes is truly one of the best Spanish writers of all time, and Don Quixote is a masterpiece that deserves all the recognition it’s getting, but I also feel like we’re all oblivious to everything else it stands for.” Your breathing is heavy as you finally stop yourself from rambling and you look at Javi with wide eyes.

“I’m sorry, I’m… rambling...” you feel the heat spreading through your cheeks with a giggle, wondering if you’ve scared him off completely by impersonating a waterfall. You can feel his eyes on you when you look away, like they’re trying to get through to something hidden inside you.

“It’s alright.” Your eyes return to his face and there’s that smile again - it makes your heartbeat faster in your chest. “You’re passionate about literature. It’s impressive.” He reaches out, and for a moment you’re sure he’s going to take a hold of your hand. Instead, he diverts his hand when he notices you watching him and brings it back to rub at the back of his neck. He breathes out, whispering out another word you can barely make out. “Impressive.”

“Oh… Okay,” your words are too barely a whisper, and you’re unsure if he’s heard it. You feel all the shyness that hadn’t been present all night slowly seep into your body while watching him through your lashes as he takes another swig of his whiskey before lightning another cigarette.

You silently admire the way the orange hue makes its way toward his lips, slowly dissolving the tobacco. It was almost like art - watching him suck the dangerous fumes into his lungs before exhaling the white smoke. You watch as his fingers tap the body of the cigarette, flicking the spent ashes into the tray on the bar.

He sighs, his hands find back to its original spot on the bar, and you discretely reach out to caress the underside of his arm, where the white sleeve of his shirt is stretched over his tan skin. It’s like the last few hours didn’t happen, and you’re back to strangers. It’s a bold move of you to even reach out for him.

Why did it have to get awkward now? You think as you swiftly play with the hem of his sleeve, watching your fingers as you twirl a thread around them. His hand finds yours and you look up at him, catching the way the lights reflect in his eyes. He has put out the last of the cigarette just seconds before, his exhale still white from smoke.

You close your eyes slightly, enjoying the way the smell of nicotine lingered on him. You had never been one to like the smell of cigarette smoke, but the way he wore it made your nerve ends tingle. What you wouldn’t do to taste the nicotine on his lips. You flick your eyes up, meeting his gaze again.

His face is closer now than when he whispered in your ear, and you find yourself blushing again. You really want to kiss him. His lips look so kissable as well, like… like soft, plump pink rose petals. You felt every sense of restraint disintegrate slowly, while you unhurriedly gather enough courage to lean into the heat radiating off his body.

You’re watching his face as you deliberately lean in, closer, closer, until your lips are resting just over his. You should be disgusted with the smell of his cigarette filling your nostrils, but the way it mixes with the scent of him, you find yourself loving it. Craving it. Wanting more.

“Don’t want to take advantage of you,” he whispers against your lips, the gentle brush of his lips against yours setting your every nerve ending on fire, causing electricity to burst through your limbs. “Want you comfortable,” he breathes again, tilting his head just the slightest before flicking his eyes over your face. “Want to taste you.”

He takes in the gradual reddening of your cheeks and the way your lashes rest against them. “I am comfortable,” you murmur, before tilting your head sparsely, your lips finally meeting his. The feeling that hits you is indescribable, like somebody has ignited a thousand firecrackers behind your eyes and in your body.

It sounds cliché - the first kiss with someone drawing out those reactions in you. It’s the cliché of every teenage romance movie you’ve ever seen, like the way fireworks go off behind them or the casual leg-bend that happens every time. That’s what it feels like, though.

His lips move against yours ever so softly, his tongue gently swiping across your lower lip as his hand finds the side of your neck. The rough pads of his fingers are considerate and tender as they softly caress your skin, his touch leaving a trail of fire in their wake.

You silence a whimper into his mouth as his tongue finally gains the access it’s begging for, the tip of it gently meeting yours. It’s unfamiliar, both the feeling of a foreign tongue in your mouth and the coarse feeling of his mustache against your upper lip.

It feels amazing, though. Your fingers, previously playing with the sleeve of his shirt, are now gripping the front of it tightly, holding him close. Your heart is beating so loud against your ribcage you’re afraid he’s going to hear it over the deep bass still flowing through the speakers of the club.

You find it hard to breathe, mixed with the breathlessness of kissing him, finally, and the lack of air from you not wanting to breathe into his mouth directly. Your lungs are struggling with the lack of air, and you squeeze your eyes tighter, to hold on for as long as possible.

Your parting comes sooner than you would’ve liked - way sooner - you silently wish that your lips would’ve stayed connected for eternity. His forehead is resting against yours, your breaths mingling in the sparse space between the two of you. You flick your eyes upwards slightly, taking in his closed eyes before they fall again, focusing on the way his shoulders are rising languidly.

Before you know it, he’s kissing you again - pulling you closer to him with one single pull. His arms are holding you tightly, one hand swiftly caressing your back as the other holds the back of your neck, softly caressing your hairline.

This time it’s your mouth that’s insistent on getting another taste of him. Your tongue explores the soft pillow that’s his bottom lip, tasting the lingering essence of tobacco and whiskey. A small moan escapes your lips as his tongue meets yours in the opening of his mouth, pressing against yours to let him back into your mouth.

Your hand comes up to grasp the back of his neck, fingers intertwining in the short, dark brown curls resting at the nape of his neck, urging him on. Your other hand is working its way under the arm that’s holding your body close, landing against his shoulder blade like it’s where it belongs.

His mustache is tickling your upper lip as his mouth ravishes yours in the most intense kiss you’ve ever experienced. Well, it was easy to make out the intensity scale with the two kisses you had ever experienced. This one definitely took the crown.

You didn’t even know how it had come to this point, kissing a stranger on your first night on vacation - well, not exactly a stranger anymore, but certainly not a previously known acquaintance. All you knew was that it felt so damn good, and that you wanted to stay right there in his arms forever.

Your hand slides down swiftly, feeling up the side of his body, and there’s no doubt he’s in shape with the number of tensing muscles you feel under his shirt as he holds you, but it’s also clear to you that he is indeed an older man.

There is a soft bagging over the top of where his belt is resting on his slim hips, and it ignites something inside you, that you hadn’t even thought possible. There’s no doubt this man has experience, but you’re not exactly keen to find out just how much. All you want to do, is to stay lost in the flurry of emotions you’re feeling at this point.

In a shortage of breath from both of you, you finally peel yourselves from each other, taking in the others disheveled state. There’s a slight pause between the two of you, before you both break out into grins, soon thereafter joined by giggles and laughter.

You finish the rest of your drink swiftly, watching him over the rim of your glass before you put it down. “One more?” He smirks and you offer him a smile, before you nod.

“If you’re offering.” You watch as he nods before signaling the bartender again, for the 10th time that evening. You watch as he makes your drink behind the bar before placing it in front of you. He looks between you and Javi swiftly, before speaking up.

“Cerramos en 20” he says, leaving you two again, but this time with a bill in front of Javi. You look it over with a smile, wondering how much you had to contribute with. Javi blocks your view before pulling out his wallet from his back pocket, throwing a good amount of pesos on the bar to cover the bill.

Your mouth falls open when he turns to you, his eyebrow raised at your expression. “He should be the one tipping us for the show we just gave him.” He laughs, and you can hear it comes all the way from his stomach. You can’t help but join in. Well, that’s one way to say it.

“They’re closing in 20. Finish your drink,” he pulls on the leather jacket he draped over the back of the bar stool he’d been sitting on, and damn if that one piece of garment doesn’t suit him startingly. “You mind if I walk you home? I’d like to make sure you’re getting home safe, so I have a chance of seeing you again.”

You can’t help but smile at his question, giggling as you quickly down the drink the bartender has placed in front of you, before you’re getting off the bar stool you were sitting on. “Sure.” You whisper in his ear as you walk out of the bar with Javi hot on your heels.

You can feel his eyes on your hips as you saunter out of the bar, twirling once to see if he’s still following you. He is. And his eyes are trained on you like a hawk on its prey. His lips tug between his teeth as he watches the curve of your body being engulfed in the dim rays of the rising sun.

It’s like you’re some kind of ethereal being right then, sent to him by the gods. He never truly believed in heaven and anything else superstitious before this exact moment in time. Seeing you right at that moment - it changed something within him. He usually did the whole relationship without the aspect of love. Scratch that - he never did proper relationships.

Yet he couldn’t help but think that you, at that moment, could be a part of his future. He felt his heart pick up the pace when you smiled at him, as you reached out your hand for him to take. It was like he imagined what your whole future could look like, right there.

He steps out into the morning light overshining Bogotá as he takes your hand, his eyes reacting poorly to the already brightly illuminated city. He brings a hand to rest against his brows as he halts in his steps, squinting his eyes to get his vision back. As the whiteness clears from his eyes, the first thing he sees is you.

It’s in stark contrast to the dim lighting of the bar - out in the sun he can see just how beautiful you are. He can’t pinpoint exactly what it is, but he feels his heart pick up the pace again. He feels like a teenager again. Your voice fills his ears and at first, he doesn’t really hear what you say. Your plump pink lips are just moving angelically, taking his breath away.

Then you’re pulling him by the hand, and he follows you. He’s amazed that you manage to hurry through so many small passageways, since it’s only your second day in Bogotá. He watches your back the whole time you’re leading him wherever the two of you are going.

He notices a constellation of freckles on your shoulder that slithers its way up the back of your neck, and he finds himself wanting to kiss the skin there. He almost runs into you when you come to a stop, turning to face him with rapid movements.

“How do you still have this much energy?” He breathes - he is out of breath. He watches you, your chest rising rapidly as your smile beams at him.

“You’ve paid for my drinks through the night. Let me repay the favor.” You grin as you gesture toward the small restaurant you’ve led him to. The small restaurant is already buzzing with life, and Javi still has no recollection of what time it is.

It doesn’t really matter when he’s in your company. “I walked past this place yesterday when I was exploring. I wanted to try their pancakes and a cup of real Colombian coffee.”

His hand is still intertwined with yours, and you’re swinging it slightly between you, as if it would help you convince him to let you buy breakfast. He nods then, making you smile even wider.

“Guess I could use a cup of coffee that isn’t homemade.”

─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────

The pancakes you’re eating are the perfect combination of sweet and spongy dough. You almost moan when the freshly made syrup-glazed bite fills your mouth. You notice Javi watching you from the other side of the table, and you offer him a close-mouthed smile.

Your cheeks are full of pancakes, and in that moment, he realizes just how young you are compared to him. It unsettles his stomach just slightly - he’s never been one to overthink hooking up with someone, but right at this moment he’s starting to second think his decision.

He’s afraid he’s gonna be the one who ruins you completely with who he is, and the story he has. It’s never been easy for him to have relationships. He even had the audacity to leave his former fiancée at the altar.

He never knew why he was unable to commit himself, yet he found so much hate within him, diverted at himself. He just didn’t understand the impulses he would have. He could fuck three different women in the same day, if he wanted to. He didn’t even know where his libido came from.

He watches you as you chew your way through your sugary breakfast, all while occasionally taking a few sips of your coffee. He sips his own coffee in silence, just observing you as you fill your empty stomach. He should be eating something.

When you finally lean back against the backrest of the chair, your plate cleared and your mouth swallowing the last bite of pancake, you offer him another smile. This time it’s with teeth, though.

He feels his heart beat like that again, and he doesn’t fucking understand why you’re doing this to him. He knows he shouldn’t be feeling this way about someone he just met. Yet he can’t help himself.

He watches you without a word, simply observing you as you look around the small restaurant, the street in front of it bustling with life by now and your eyes observing every person walking by.

He admires the way your tongue darts out to lick your bottom lip, your tongue most likely finding some residing syrup. It runs over your lips twice more and he feels a jolt run from his heart right into his groin.

It ignites everything inside his body, and he closes his eyes slightly, imagining things he definitely shouldn’t be imagining at this point. He barely knows you. He sort of feels bad. Yet he can’t stop himself.

When he opens his eyes, you’re looking directly at him. “Where did your head run off to?” You tilt your head with a slight smile playing on your lips, and he finds himself getting lost in your eyes again.

This is the first time he’s actually getting to look into them properly. Dazzling orbs are watching him through lashes, compelling him to do things he’s sure he’s going to regret later. He’s simply mesmerized by your eyes. He feels like you can see right through the barrier he’s been working on and putting up for so many years to shield himself from the problems of the world.

“You really don’t wanna know, hermosa.” The words leaving his lips make your heart beat faster in your chest, again, and oh man if this man isn’t going to be the end of you. Even with the little-to-no experience you had, you were sure you would let him do anything he wanted with you.

You scoot to the edge of the chair you’re sitting on, feeling a sudden surge of confidence overcome you as you let your chin rest on your palm. Your foot slowly extends out, finding the inside of his calf under the table before it makes its way north lazily. “Try me. Maybe I’m thinking the same thing.”

He feels a breath getting stuck in his throat. That he definitely did not expect from you. With the little knowledge he had about you, he hadn’t expected you to come onto him so strong. He definitely didn’t mind your interest in him - you were a beautiful woman.

He leans forward slightly, over the table to get closer to you. He doesn’t need the whole restaurant knowing their business. “Maybe I’m not the man for you, hermosa.” Your hand unexpectedly takes his, and he yet again finds himself taken aback.

“Maybe I’ll let me decide for myself.” You whisper to him, before retreating yourself from his personal space. You dig through your small handbag to find your purse, pulling out pesos to cover the bill along with a tip. You rise from your seat with a smile, scooting the chair back under the table.

He’s reluctant to follow your movements, so you speak up. “Were you going to follow me home, or have you changed your mind?” You challenge him as you watch him stand as well. His eyebrow raises slightly at your statement before he signals you to leave the restaurant with his hand.

“So, where do you live?” You ask him as you both leave the restaurant. He walks beside you with his hands deeply buried within the front pockets of his jeans as if he’s scared of touching you.

You walk beside him with your hands clenched at your sides, desperately wanting to touch him again. There’s something infuriating and infatuating about him at the same time. It’s not easy to read him, and he knows it. He loves it.

“I live in one of the apartments ordinated to me by the organization. They have some apartments close to the office.” He tells you, and the rest of the way home to your rented apartment is with small talk between the two of you. You feel the distance between you now, like he regrets the fire he undeniably has started within your body.

You turn to him when you finally stand in front of the small apartment, you’re currently residing in. You offer him a small smile, unsure of what to do at this point. How were you ever going to say goodbye to him? You didn’t really want to.

His fingers move a strand of hair out of your face before he’s grasping your head in his hands again, placing his lips against yours again, finally. You realize by then that you have been craving the feel of his lips against yours, the smell of him once again making its way to your nostrils. Tobacco, whiskey and something you can’t place - maybe sandalwood or cedar.

Your lips move against one another slowly - sinfully - and you catch yourself grasping the front of his jacket within your fists so tightly it hurts. His hands are persistently holding your face close to his, further deepening the kiss.

The kiss leaves you breathless yet again, and you find yourself craving more and more of him. You want to know everything about him. You want all of him. You detach your lips from his with a sigh, your eyes closed as you await something, anything.

Yet nothing happens. When you open your eyes to look at him, he’s already watching you. You turn your body slightly, digging through your handbag to find your key. You unlock the door swiftly as he watches you, slightly out of breath himself. He watches you step into your apartment, feeling a slight sense of anguish at the way you’re not inviting him in. Or so he thought.

“Would you like to come in?” Your words are low and soft as you ask him, almost like you’re afraid he’s going to refuse. Your heart falls in sync with your face, as he hides it in his face. You watch as he rubs his fingers over his eyes with a sigh.

“I better get home. I need to sleep for a bit. I am an old man, after all.” He tells you and watches the way your face falls. You nod though, as if you’re letting him know that you’re alright with it, even though he can clearly tell you aren’t. “I’ll come pick you up later today? Maybe I can show you some of the city.”

Your face brightens instantly, and yet again he has to remind himself just how young you are. He knows already he’s going to hurt you, but how he’s going to do it is unclear to him.

“I would love that. I think I may need some sleep as well.” You say with a smile before you’re stepping back out through the door to place another kiss against his lips. You know by now that you will never get tired of the feeling of his mustache against your skin. And boy were you wanting to feel his mustache against other parts of your skin as well.

“I’ll see you then.” He says as he departs from your front step, and you watch him as he walks down the road, occasionally looking over his shoulder to see if you���re still watching him, before he turns around a corner, and out of your sight.

･ ⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･

next chapter

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

Hi. Not VMIN or Namjin related, but I would love to hear your opinion about some critics (maybe haters is a better word lol) saying how Butter's success is inorganic. They were saying how it's just army mass streaming and mass buying etc, that the BB charts are irrelevant bec of it. It's a controversial topic and apparently it was common in the music industry to have payolas too? Lol. I never knew there's politics into it. Does streaming practically mean "cheating" ? Your thoughts?

You've come to the right place because I have a lot of opinions on the topic and I'm more than willing to share my thoughts because truly, just like everybody else, I'm sick and tired of yet another whiny white man of the week coming at us with baseless accusations of ARMY "cheating" and inorganically pushing Butter because that doesn't fit with what has been the status quo so far.

The issue, though really it only is an issue because it’s BTS and ARMY, is, like you said, ARMY buying Butter via the US store offered to us by BH/Columbia. This is funded either via funding accounts that gather donations and distribute them to those (usually fellow ARMYs) willing/wanting to buy the song, or people who just, well, want to buy the song because they like it, which includes non-ARMYs, aka locals/the general public. None of that is against the rules, which I think whiny white man of the week also acknowledged, but here we are anyway.

This complaint isn’t new either, we’ve already gone over it last year with Dynamite, so it’s another cyclical piece of discourse we’re having to deal with. Here is something that Bryan Rolli, a journalist writing (among other places) for Forbes and the man behind a lot of really good articles about BTS (among them also one in defense of them about this very topic), twted recently:

And he is right, it’s unrealistic to think that even a fandom as large as ours in the US would be able to find funds they are able to spend across five weeks and ongoing in order to just make the #1 happen based on sales. There is no way, unless we have some truly generous rich people amongst us who would be wiling to spend thousands of dollars. Which we don't, as far as I’m aware. Which leaves us with one conclusion: while yes, ARMY are able to buy a good quantity of copies of Butter, it’s ridiculous to think that a song that is such a hit hasn't found its way into the heart of locals as well and that there aren’t people out in the US who just like the song and have bought it. Not because ARMY asked them to, but because they genuinely wanted to.

Besides, regardless how many copies ARMY would buy, sales aren’t the only deciding factor that goes into which song gets onto the charts, and which one will be #1. 

In order to chart on Billboard Hot 100 you basically need points gathered across three major categories: Sales (physical as well as digital), Streams (this includes music streaming services as well as video streams on YT) and Airplay. There are more finer details that go into all three of these, but just knowing those basics is enough for this post.

Staying with sales, there are many ways in which you can game the system, most of them ways BH has never touched while US artists did. Have any of these critics ever proclaimed how that was breaking and manipulating the charts? Of course not. At the height of the bundles era a label could decide to bundle something as cheap as a lollipop with a song/album and the sale of that lollipop would count as song/album sale, even if you didn’t actually pay for the album/song. That used to be an awfully popular method of gaming the system, just like selling a single song on a CD for a dollar (which isn’t against the rules) knowing that physical sales weigh heavier than digital ones. Again, that’s something BH/BTS never did.

So, even if we’d have sales covered, we still need streams and airplay to get that number one. Do you know what one of the major factors was for why ON “only” made it onto #4 and never onto #1? It wasn’t the song being bad and ARMY not buying, but because it barely got any spins on US radios. And by barely I mean (if I remember right) less than ten.

More below the cut:

Years ago when BTS were not anywhere as famous in the BTS as they are now, ARMY would call radio stations across the US, send flowers and cupcakes, just to get them to play BTS. In most cases, radios laughed at them and refused to do it. Thanks to one radio DJ we even know that there used to be a group chat of radio DJs who spent their time ridiculing BTS and ARMY and discussing how regardless of what we’d do, they wouldn’t play them anyway because *inset dumb, likely ra/cist, reasons here*.

Thankfully with Dynamite and Butter being English singles, the tides have turned a little more in our favor. According to this website the wonderful BTSChartData has created, Butter has had a reach/audience of 12M when it comes to radio (I’m unsure if this is overall or just this week) with nearly 3.5k spins. This helps tremendously when it comes to BBH100 points, but it’s important to remember that really, we don’t have any real influence on radio playlisting. Labels do through something commonly known as payola. And many, and by that I mean many, do that for their artists. Notice how some songs are being played nearly every hour? And yet other things which are massive hits get barely any plays at all? As far as we know BH/Colombia has never done any of this for BTS. If they had, those spin numbers would look very differently.

At this point we could get into a whole argument how messed up it is that it took an English song for radios to play BTS while they basically refused to do so with their Korean ones, and how with radio charts labels have the ability to pay their chosen songs to be high on them, but that’s a can of worms that would take too much time and we’re all aware that it’s a thing that happens.

The last category is streaming and here it gets messy, or messier, depending on how you look at it. ARMY might be the only fandom with this degree of knowledge about streaming and how to make our streams count, how to set up playlists properly etc, and yes, we do use our knowledge to our advantage, so to speak. And yet the system still finds a way to penalize us for it by basically filtering out massive amounts of streams for apparently no reason whatsoever. While other songs and their first day streams saw a filter rate of perhaps ten, maybe twenty, percent, do you know what it looked like for Butter?

That’s quite the difference, right? And it remained at such drastic numbers for quite a while, too. Despite ARMY knowing how not to behave like bots, even though critics and antis love to present us as such. Does Spotify explain those filter rates, or even how those are decided and calculated? No. So basically ARMY is up against an invisible power that has all the tools while we have to hope we won’t get stepped on and crushed like ants.

Speaking of Spotify, a big part of how streaming numbers happen and how songs find their way in front of new audiences are playlists, specifically the ones curated by unknown Spotify staff members like Today’s Top Hits (28.8M followers) or Top 50 - Global (16M followers). Since those playlists are created by Spotify using whatever secret criteria, we have no influence onto them (other than some that depend, to a degree, on streaming numbers). Labels do through, again, payola. Labels can buy their artists top spots on the biggest playlists and thus their songs get massive streaming numbers, not because fans genuinely listen to them, but because random people listening to those playlists might have it playing in the background without them even really knowing it or being aware who the artist is or what the song is called. You know those ads you get when you’re listening to the free version of Spotify, specifically those advertising some new album or song? Even just those thirty seconds of ad time count as a stream.

While it’s true that ARMY hold streaming parties, it is also a fact that ARMY, unlike many other fandoms, really spend a lot of time genuinely listening to BTS’ music in general. And while some idiots on twt think streaming means sitting motionlessly while staring at a screen as the song is playing over and over again, most ARMY just have the music playing while they do something else, like household chores or reading or doing work. Is it cheating to enjoy your favorite artists music? To play it on Spotify or any other streaming platform? Is it cheating to watch an MV simply because you enjoy it? No, of course not. 

Therefore, to answer your question, no, streaming isn’t cheating. And neither are listening/streaming parties since, chances are, even without them those participating in them would be listening to BTS anyway. Thanks to those parties they get to do it with a sense of community, talk to each other, discuss whichever song is currently playing, and have fun. Nothing inorganic about that.

Pulling up another Brian, in this case Brian Cantor who is an entertainment journalist, here’s something he said that I think is very true:

And that’s the thing, when BH set up streaming parties for a week after the release of Butter, that was seen negatively, as well as ARMY doing their own, and yet when another artist’s label did it for them, it was seen as fun way to engage with fans and to make listening to the new album a collective experience, or something like that. As long as it is Bangtan, only the negatives will count. But they (critics) forget something, as in, setting up listening parties and online stores for songs is one thing, but getting people to actually tune in and spend their coin on music are a completely different one.

And this is the thing that whiny white man of the week, chose whichever one you want, don’t understand--the fact that ARMY are a big and very active fandom. That we are organized and that, in order for BTS to chart and be known, BH/Columbia doesn’t need to use any of the cheats that US labels use, like payola. They don’t have to rely on the whims of the general public, on radio DJs, or put out tens of thousands of dollars to get proper playlisting and interest in a song. BTS releases new music and ARMY is there, we tune in, we spend our hard earned money on their music, not because some smart PR tactic tricked us into it, not because playlisting, payola, and mediaplay tricked us into it, but because we genuinely enjoy their music, because we have this one of a kind connection with Bangtan, one that US labels, and whiny white man of the week, don’t understand. And don’t really care to understand either.

Because those aren’t the norm in the US. Because in the past hit songs were decided through large sums of money and deals happening behind closed doors. Yet now ARMY and BTS are here. We see the broken pieces of the system, we shine light upon them, reveal the negatives and all the ways in which the system doesn’t work and/or isn’t fair, we’re vocal about it on social media, and whiny white man of the week, as well as label executives, don’t like it. So we are made out to be the bad guys. For genuinely enjoying our favorite artists and their music. For being willing to listen to them and to spend money on them. What scandalous behavior.

We don’t do what we do because we want to game the system, but because we want things to be more fair, for BTS to get the respect they deserve, to be listened to and given the time of day. They are called the biggest band in the world right now, so why is it so hard to believe that their song is rightfully #1? That they are simply popular, not just with ARMY but also with locals (Dynamite is the background music in the new trailer for the Clifford the Big Red Dog movie, has been used at high school graduations, and many other things showing just how big of a hit it still is almost a year later, that isn’t us, that’s locals loving the song just as much as we do), and that ARMY aren’t just silly little girls (not that there is anything wrong with being a little girl that enjoys music, of course) that scream any time someone as much as mentions BTS. We are a large and extremely diverse fandom in terms of age, gender, race, and education/profession. We see the injustice and we aren’t afraid to point it out and stand up against it.

What we are doing isn’t manipulation, isn’t inorganic or fake, and it certainly isn’t making BBH100 irrelevant or broken. If anything it shows that it already was that way before we arrived. 

[gingersnappe-9]

Quisiera: Growing Pains (2)

Javier Peña / F!Reader; Post Narcos

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1.9K words

Summary: You have a lot on your mind. You never expected Javi to be one of them. But that's nothing a good soak can't fix, right?

Warnings: mention of loss of parent & degenerative diseases, minor depictions of sexual thoughts, minor profanity

A/N: because I'm a major dork, and no one asked, I created the floor plan for the reader's house and my friend @followwhereshegoes designed it in Sims for me. The photos are at the end of the chapter. I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!

Your hair blew in the wind as you drove your work-beaten Ford F-250 home. Papers from a long day of checking up on animals and livestock fluttered beneath your now empty thermos for coffee. Your head bobbed with the familiar bumps and turns of the road as you drove home. The ride wasn’t unlike it had been any other day, but as you pulled into your driveway and peaked to the left and you knew he would be there. You had known for a few weeks now that Javi had been back. On a courtesy visit for Don Jesús -- Javi’s dad -- he had mentioned his son might be returning to Texas soon. That had to have been roughly two, maybe three months ago?

You never thought you would see him again. The kid who always thought he knew best. The one who was so sure of himself and that the world was his oyster. You weren’t surprised that he didn’t recognize you though. That was Javi you grew up with. This Javier was different. It was plain to see that he carried a weight with him. Knowing the things he knew, holding on to whatever he’d done in the back of his mind now and forever. He wasn’t the bright and shiny version of Javi you once knew, but he was still as golden as ever.

As you hopped out of the car and twirled the keys on your finger, you were beyond satisfied at your decision to postpone your reunion with Javi. Crossing the threshold of your house you recalled how panicked he looked. The quick flashes of “oh shit” in his eyes before he masked his uncertainty with precision and a charming smile. To others, he played it off fine, but you knew Javi before he was Agent Peña. You’d practically grown up with him so you were privy to those subtle tells.

Javi’s abuelos moved to be closer to their son and his family. His grandparents and your parents met in English class after they moved to America and the families stayed close ever since. Javi’s family was from Mexico, and yours came from Colombia. Each of your tíos and tías helped watch and raise you and your primos. While most of your blood relatives were still in Colombia, you loved your found family here in the States. All of the birthdays spent in one another’s backyards with copious amounts of candy that came pouring out of piñatas. Big Christmas gatherings with mountains of food like ponche, pozole verde, and dulcitos like your favorite manjar blanco. Above all, you remember the laughter.

You laughed so much as a child. Someone could look at you in such a way and you would have burst out into a fit of giggles and happy squeals. It was a bittersweet thing to recall. Things were just… different now. You grew up. Life changed, you certainly had.

This was the home your parents had built not too long after they came to America. You still felt like a little kid playing house sometimes. Being the sole occupant felt strange after the years you spent growing up with the place bursting with laughter, people, and above all love. But life changed. Your mother had died of a heart attack the year before you finished vet school. Ten years back, your father was diagnosed with early onset dementia and it was left to you to make the hard decision of placing him in a nursing home. You couldn’t care for him with the hours you worked at the clinic, and you didn’t think your heart could bear seeing the man you admired slowly fade away. It made you feel awful to admit, but there was only so much a heart could take. It could’ve been different if you still had your mamá, but it was just you.

Your body hitched a bit as you bent over to pull the dirt caked boots off your feet. Growing up is fun, they said. They never mentioned anything about rapid onset aches and pains once you passed thirty. You loved being a vet, you loved taking care of horses and all manner of livestock; being there for the folks who relied on you, but man alive was it taxing on the body.

As you padded your way into the study just to the left of the front door, you dropped the excess paperwork and lunch pale on your desk; your boots onto the old mat so as to not spread anymore dirt in the house. Trying your best to properly file away your paperwork, billing receipts and lists of future visits, you found your mind wandering back to Javier.

The wonderful way his bone structure had sharpened with age. Yeah he was a good looking teenage boy -- a bit on the thin side, but strong in body and mind -- but this version of Javi was a stud. His skin was naturally tanner than some, but it was even more bronzed by the sun from his time down in Colombia. A man with strong looking hands that wrapped the circumference of the tumbler glass filled with neat whiskey meanwhile yours could only manage to get around halfway. You were extremely annoyed at how he could pull off a damn mustache without looking like a creep. Finding that you were spending far too much time thinking about Javier Peña rather than getting your ass ready for bed, you set off on your nightly routine.

Pushing yourself up and out of the desk chair was more tiresome than you would have liked to admit, but not impossible. You then opened the door that led into your bedroom. It still felt a bit weird to call it your bedroom after all this time.

You had redecorated the place to your tastes. The main bedroom now had a beautiful four post bed with pleated gossamer drapes around the posts. The warm wood bureau and doors matched the deep trim of the window sills and frames throughout the house. You removed your everyday jewelry and placed them in the little wooden dishes you had bought in Colombia the last time you visited. You had just turned twenty two then, and didn’t care to remember how old you were now. Admiring the fine artistry of the delicately carved lines and lacquered scenery of a village always brought back fine memories, summers spent in a home away from home. Peeling off your work clothes proved a bit more challenging now that your muscles and bones had started to stiffen from the wear of the workday. You walked into your bathroom as naked as the day you were born, a small perk of having moved into the main bedroom since it had an ensuite bathroom.

After the long day, a shower just didn’t seem like it was going to cut it. You pivoted to the left and began to draw a steaming hot bath. A few drops of essential oil were splashed into the piping hot water. Your abuelita did always say, “Medicina cuando la necesita, pero los remedios naturales siempre son los mejores.”

Medicine when you need it, but natural remedies are always best.

Once the tub was filled as high as it could go and still accommodate your body, the taps were shut off, and you slipped into the warm bliss. The water worked its magic while you turned on a small radio that sat on the windowsill. It was tuned in to some station based in Mexico that always played música rancheras. You were a self-proclaimed “old soul” and loved your parents' generational music. It was a not-so-guilty-pleasure for you. Even when you were younger, some of the other kids made fun of you for not liking the more modern music. But your mom always reassured you it was because you were un romántico. A romantic.

The soulful melodies and elegant guitar echoed through the steam from the bath as your aches and pains were softly pulled from your bones. The sky outside the window was a dusty pink muddled with orange. The heat from the bath was wonderful. Your mind wandered ever farther as you sunk deeper into relaxation. Tonight was one of those evenings you imagined someone else in the tub with you, it was one of the reasons you’d thrown in a couple extra bucks when you redid the bathroom. You imagined leaning against their chest, them running their hands up and down the inner part of your thighs, getting closer and closer to where you wanted their touch the most.

Big and strong hands. Ones that weren’t afraid to leave an imprint, a reminder of their presence. Your cheeks flushed at the thought of them gently pressing and squeezing into your thighs, chest, and hips. The fantasy completed itself when you put a face to this mystery man.

Warm brown eyes, a well-defined jaw, somewhat pouty lips that practically begged you to kiss them with a fucking mustache of all things. You imagined the sound of his voice right next to your ear, whispering dirty things while he continued to paw at your body with confidence. The fresh recall of your most recent conversation made the day dream seem all the more real. It was intimate, enticing. You hadn't had any real boyfriend in a while and with the luscious way the water lapped over your skin, you couldn’t help but squeeze your thighs together unconsciously as his conjured words echoed in your mind.

You feel so soft, Armorsita. Do you like when I touch you here, baby? Oh, you do. I can tell. Mi dama. Tell me. Tell me how much you like it, how much you love being mine. Let me have you, all of you. Let me show you just how much I love touching you right…

Your mind snapped back when your head slipped from its perch on the back of the tub. The room felt steamier than it had before even as the water temperature had dipped to lukewarm.

Was I really just fantasizing about Javier Peña of all people?

It was official then. You needed to get into bed and sleep off whatever delusions these were and come back to reality.

Fully washed and dried, you finished your routine by lathering yourself in your favorite lavender body lotion. Your body felt much better without the thin layer of Texas dust smothering your skin. Something different, however, clouded your mind, or rather, someone. It was a bit alarming how easily Javier permeated your idle thoughts. The encounter suddenly became very clear.

Why did you say goodnight as sultry as you did? Was that even sultry? Why do I keep thinking about it being “sultry”?

Your mind recalled the brief moment your lips touched his cheek. It wasn’t unlike any other time you kissed a friend goodbye. You’d been doing it forever. It was how you said goodbye. You knew that, and so did he. So why did it carve out its own special place in your mind? Why were the sensations so clear and vidid? Why did you so badly want to do it again and again without pause?

Of course your mind would fixate on the person who had just recently come back into your life. It was only natural. Humans are designed to notice differences. It’s a survival technique. To pay attention to possible threats. And you had yet to make up your mind if you considered this version of Javier Peña a friend or foe.

Taglist: @hnt-escape @betti-book @mcueveryday @athalien

[unstoppableforcce]

ghosts

—CHAPTER FOUR: sour guilty sickness

pairing: Javier Peña x f! reader

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a/n: well it took a while but here she is ! things are turning a bit of a brighter corner here but don’t worry, the angst will be back soon enough !! thanks for waiting yall, I’m so glad to finally get this out !! hope you enjoy !!

The version of him that you photographed was the man he wished he could be.

Unburdened. Happy. In love.

That man, that version of him, didn’t exist. Not really. Not for any longer than it took you to take the photo in the first place.

Reality was darker. Blurrier. Emptier.

The man in the photos was never suffocated in darkness or stalked in shadows, yet he spent his days drowning in the deepest depths of humanity’s darkest days. The water was at his head, every breath was a fight, and there never seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Another day, another massacre. Another mission, another mistake, another man who didn’t get to go home, another family left with a hole that no rousing speech, commendation, or memorial could ever fill.

The man in the photos was never out of focus, yet Javier couldn’t remember a time when things had been clear, when the line between good and bad wasn’t an indiscernible mess he had no chance in hell of ever making sense of. There was blood everywhere he looked, it stained his hands and everything he touched, he could scrub for hours and he still felt wrong holding you close. The horrors he witnessed, the horrors he executed, all of it lined the uneven, narrow passageway that separated the good from the bad. It was grey, blurry and messy. Not sharp edges, no clean cuts.

And the man in the photo was never alone. That just wasn’t fair, because all Javier ever felt was alone.

The photos always captured him as a man of the world around him: gently examining tomatoes on your instruction as the two of you moved through the market overflowing with life, laughing shoulder to shoulder with Murphy in the packed booth of a bar with his fingers cradling the neck of his beer, holding your hand or touching you someway even if you were out of frame. The photos painted him as a man who was never alone, but he was, he was so painfully alone. In the darkness surrounding him, in the blurred alley that existed between the lines, even in bed as you slept beside him, he was alone, trapped in the horrors that haunted his lonely mind.

There were moments when he could forget, moments where the hot press of your mouth along the length of his neck lit a fire of warmth in his chest and kept him on fire for hours while his hands clung to your skin, moments where the soft hold of your hand found his, your linked grips swinging between the two of you as you walked through the humming streets as the golden glow of the setting sun settled over the two of you, moments where the two of you felt like the only two people in the world and he could never imagine ever being without you. There were moments, plenty of them, but it was never enough.

He felt empty in a way your photos could never capture, alone in a way he never shared with you. In a way he never shared with anyone.

The man you photographed was the man he wanted to be. The man you photographed was the man you deserved.

Waking up to that man staring back at him was plainly mocking and exactly what he deserved.

The photo had slipped from the mess of photographs stacked in your lap and found itself a place to rest against the flat of the bed between where you sat up, already awake, and where his head rested on the edge of his pillow as the morning finally woke him. It was a photo of him, unburdened, happy, and in love.

As aged as it felt, he knew it had only been a few months ago. A Sunday. A simple Sunday.

He had lost you in the street, or at least, he thought he had. Not intentionally, but in the excitement of the crowds pouring out of every church that lined the streets of the neighborhood, it was relatively easy to do. His attention was pulled one way and yours the other. A small cart of flowers had been his hook, catching him out of the crowd and reeling him over. Buckets and buckets of beautiful flowers bunched together in bountiful bouquets, the aroma itself could have kept him there for hours.

“For someone special?” The older woman sitting beside the cart asked, her accent thick, as soon as she spotted his interest and he had no chance in hell of hiding his smitten smirk, even as he replied with a short nod of his head. “A beautiful girl?”

“The most beautiful.” He conceded.

She gestured towards a particularly large bundle but he shook his head, pointing to a different collection, smaller but no less beautiful.

“Ah… simple, good choice.”

He handed over a few folded bills and she nodded graciously, wishing him luck as he pulled the bouquet from the cart.

For just a second, maybe even less than that, he lingered. He brought the flowers to his nose and took in a deep breath of beauty, the same smitten smile still sitting on his lips as he gave one last nod to the woman and moved back into the crowd. He hadn’t seen you through the crowd, just a few yards away, capturing the moment. You had caught back up with him seconds later, intertwining the fingers of one hand with his and accepting the flowers with the other, a surging smile stuck on your face as the two of you continued your walk.

It was a good picture of him. Not of Javier, but of the man he wanted to be. Unburdened. Happy. In love.

If only he could be. If only it were that simple.

You turned as you heard him rustling in the sheets beside you, a soft smile sitting on your lips as you watched him pick up the picture and admire it for a minute. “Good morning.”

“‘Morning baby…” He hummed back, returning the photo to your lap.

There were at least twenty photos there, a couple of him, a few of Connie and Steve, both separate and together, and a couple duplicates of photos you had taken for work, streets lined with people, small cultural centers and jaw-dropping landscapes of the gorgeous Colombian nature. This wasn’t exactly a regular routine of yours, but every month or so, you’d assemble a collection of your favorites and find a place for them among the pages of your worn leather journal. Your private worn leather journal.

That wasn’t to say he never saw inside it, but it was yours to let him see. If you weren’t there to open it, it was never opened, no matter how overwhelming the affliction of curiosity could be sometimes when you left it out on the counter, he knew better.

There were six or seven of them in total, but the oldest ones typically stayed tucked away. This was the one you had kept for as long as he had known you though, your affectionately termed Colombia edition. In between the photos and their detailed descriptions scrawled beneath in your unique script, you filled the journal with general descriptions of your life, of the culture around you, and everything you’re feeling. Part of him has always wondered what you had written about him, a separate part of him, the part that always won out, never wanted to know.

“You slept in…” your words trailed off once your stare moved back to the selection of slices of your life in your lap. “You haven’t done that in a while…”

“Yeah.” He huffed, rolling onto his back as he rubbed the last of the sleep from his eyes. Lulling to the side, his head turned and his eyes stayed on you, admiring every inch of your profile as you worked.

Your smile stayed soft. Gentle. Miraculous. “That’s good…”

You deserved better than him. You deserved the man in the photos and he wasn’t that.

He needed to talk to you, to tell you why life had been hell for the two of you for the past few months, to tell you why he was keeping you up at night tossing and turning, terrified of his own mind. There were things he didn’t know how to talk about, things he didn’t know how to tell you, but that just wasn’t fair. He loved you and that meant something. Day after day, you begged him to talk to you, and he owed you that. He owed you more than the fear of losing you.

He just wasn’t ready yet.

Rolling back over, he positioned his head by your lap, laying a gentle kiss to the skin of your thigh. “How long have you been up?”

“Just about an hour or two,” you bit the end of your pen cap off to write something on the back of a photo of Connie in her scrubs getting back from work, and continued on, your words garbled by the cap between your teeth. “Whenever the sun came up.”

By this time on any other day, you’d already be out, either exploring every corner of the city or out as far as the soldiers would let you get into the surrounding jungle on your own. It had been a long time since he woke up beside you. He pressed another lazy kiss to your thigh. He missed you.

Another kiss. And another kiss.

“Javi…”

Another kiss. He’d take as many as he could get before things came to a painfully inevitable head.

He wasn’t naive, he knew you had seen bad things before. Colombia was far from your first rodeo when it came to nations in disarray, be it war, genocide, drug trade or dictatorships, he knew that. You weren’t a photographer, you were a photojournalist. He knew that.

There were things you left out when you told your exciting stories at the bar, parts of your cultural escapades in South East Asia or the Middle East that didn’t come with chuckles and smiles. He saw the way your stare absconded when Steve pressed too hard in a direction you weren’t quite willing to go and the chuckle you offered as cover as you reached for your drink and changed the subject skillfully. He listened to the things you told him beneath the blanket of darkness in his bedroom, before it became your shared bedroom, hushed whispers covering for your voice cracks as the details caught you. And he had read more of your journals than anyone else, he read passages you didn’t typically share and he saw some of the photos folded between the pages while others were showcased openly.

One was just a little girl. The folded half of the photo had caught his undeniable curiosity when a phone call interrupted you while showing him some of your older work. He hadn’t asked, he had just opened it. It was a little girl. Big smile, beautiful brown eyes. Just a little girl. There were hundreds of photos filling your journals, many of them children, but this one was folded. Hidden.

And when you returned to the table, you folded the picture shut and he knew better than to ask.

Just like he knew better than to ask when he first noticed you shying away from his gun. He never thought twice about leaving it out openly before you first showed your hesitancy and he never thought twice about putting it in a drawer after you had. He knew it wasn’t a typical civilian gun-shyness, he knew there was a reason for it.

He knew you had seen bad things before, but this wasn’t just that. He hadn’t just seen bad things in his line of work, he had done bad things. Too many bad things.

Another kiss.

Eventually, you stopped writing and recapped your pen. “Javi…”

“I know, baby.” He laid yet another kiss along your skin, actively avoiding your stare as he felt you shift to look down at him. “I know.”

“You’re going to have to talk to me…”

A rough sigh escaped his tight chest as he pressed his forehead into the curve where your thigh met your hip. Muffled, his words vibrated against the fabric of your loose-hanging tee, baggy around your hips. “I know, baby.”

He did know. He really did. But that didn’t make it any easier.

As his eyes clenched shut, buried in the warmth of your side, he could feel you shuffling around, stacking up the photos and abandoning your work by the foot of the bed. He thought it was just so you could turn all your focus to him, but you kept moving, adjusting until you laid back against a carefully constructed mountain of pillows. He readjusted almost automatically, resting his head in your lap as your fingers wove themselves into his hair.

“I miss you, Javi…” your hand brushed the flattened mess of hair back out of his eyes, carding through all of it strand by strand. “You’ve been here this whole time but I… I miss you.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to leave Javi, that’s the last thing in the world that I want to do, but you’ve gotta work with me here. This is new for me too, alright, staying in one place is new for me…” he pressed a kiss to the indent your skin had made on itself while you were sat up for so long, urging you on as your voice grew weaker. “I want to stay here. With you.”

He could hear every word you weren’t saying just as clearly as the ones you were.

Don’t give me a reason to leave, you said. This is your last chance.

He owed you more than the fear of losing you. He owed you the truth.

“Things are bad here, baby. They’ve been bad for a while, I know, but they’re getting worse.” Still, he couldn’t find the words he needed to. Vague wasn’t what you deserved. You deserved answers. “I’m doing a lot of bad things. Bad things that I can’t… I can’t bring home to you.”

“But you do.”

He sucked in a sharp breath, dipping his stare from yours and instead settling his eyes on the stitched hem of your shirt where it rucked up across your stomach. “I don’t want to,” he corrected himself and you seemed to accept that for now as his breath released in a ragged cascade across your lap. “There are parts of me that I don’t want you to see.”

“You mean parts of your job.”

No. He didn’t.

He had grown too comfortable pulling a trigger to separate himself from his work anymore, the guilt never went away but he stopped hesitating. If a man pointed a gun at him with the intent to kill him, then he did the same. It didn’t matter that he was doing things for the right reason anymore, at some point, a line needed to be drawn. Doing bad things for good reasons sounded just in theory, but he was doing more and more bad and coming out with less and less good.

Carrillo. Los Pepes. How much was too much? When was he going to be able to look at himself in the mirror again?

“Javi…”

“I know that the guys I’m fighting are much worse than me, but the lines keep getting blurrier, and what I’m willing to do to stop them… at some point…” He lost his breath, and no amount of gentle strokes through his hair could get him to keep going.

“Baby…” you cooed, dragging your nails along his scalp as his eyes fell shut. “I’ve known my fair share of bad men, you aren’t one of them.”

With his eyes shut, his mind had free reign. Over and over again he watched Carrillo line the boys up in the alley, over and over again he watched the kids talk back to him. They didn’t think he would do anything. They were just kids. Over and over again he watched him level the gun to the kid’s head and pull the trigger. Over and over again.

Extracting your hand from his hair, your warm palm moved down to his cheek. “Bad men don’t think like that, Javi.”

His head shook but your touch remained constant.

“Javi, baby, what is it? What do you keep seeing?”

Your touch was too soft, your gentle hold bordering on suffocating. He couldn’t breathe. Over and over again, the trigger pulled, the gunshot echoed, and the kid dropped.

He left a numb, barely there kiss to the hem of your shorts where they laid on your thigh, and pulled himself up. It was a weak promise he made to you, to cut back on his smoking, you knew that when he made it, yet he still felt guilty rolling over and reaching for the half-empty pack he pulled from his pockets last night and left on the nightstand. He could feel your eyes lingering on the tension held taut between his shoulders, he could feel the concern smothering your stare, he could feel the weight of it chilling his spine.

“Javi…” he could hear you sitting up behind him but he didn’t stop, he threw his legs over his side of the bed and lit his cigarette with an effortless flick of the lighter. Your hand found his shoulder and he flinched. “Javi, I—”

“He was just a kid.”

He could feel the comforting confidence leave you, your grip losing all its strength where it lingered on his shoulder. You didn’t pull back, but you might as well have, your touch was numb. He inhaled a deep breath of smoke, but the warmth was nothing compared to the chill emanating from you the second the word ‘kid’ left his lips.

“Javi, what happened?” There was an edge to your tone, a careful cut.

“Carrillo he… he told me that he wanted to send a message. I didn’t ask what that meant… I trusted him so I didn’t ask…” He coughed out, wiping over his face with his hand as he folded even further in on himself. Again and again, he watched the kid drop. Again and again, the echo of the shot rang through the alley and became all he could hear. “Escobar, he uses kids as spotters, to keep an eye on the military. Just boys, maybe as old as fourteen, and young as seven, maybe eight. And Carrillo, he wanted to round them up, he wanted to send a message.”

This was as quiet as the room had ever been.

He could hear each of your stilted breaths, every rustle against the sheets as you shifted carefully behind him, every beat of your heart.

He sucked in another breath of smoke. “He lined them up in this alley, he was talking to them, he was trying to scare them but… but one of the kids wouldn't shut up. He didn’t think… I didn’t think…”

Your grip found itself again as you started pulling the rough puzzle pieces he choked out for you together.

“I just stood there watching when he pulled the trigger. Everytime I close my eyes, I see it again and I can’t…”

“Javi, baby—” Tighter and tighter, your grip grew as you held his shoulder, fingers digging in as he slipped further and further away. Each flash of memories in his mind took him deeper and deeper down, until the darkness of his guilt began to swallow him whole.

“I just stood there, I let it happen. I knew something was different with him, I knew and I just let him do it—”

Your other hand ran up his back, your body heat pressing closer in behind him as the chills settled in his spine grew constant, a cold wind swirling in his chest. “Javi—”

A violent breath of smoke fell from his lips as he scoffed, disgust bubbling up from deep within his gut. “I didn’t even try to stop him.”

“Could you have?”

The brutalized scene playing behind his mind froze. “What?”

“I only met him a few times but he wasn’t a man to compromise. If you had tried, do you honestly think you could have stopped him?” Your voice was closer now, right over his shoulder as you tentatively wrapped yourself around him from behind. Every inch of your touch was timid and hesitant, like you thought one wrong move would shatter him into a thousand pieces.

Maybe you were right.

He smashed the butt of his cigarette into the ashtray on the nightstand as his tone grew deeper, rough with a tone he never took with you. “I was standing right there.”

“You just said you didn’t know what he was planning to do, Javi—”

“I should have known.”

“Javi—”

“I watched his men march them into the alley, I stood there when they lined them up on their knees,” he cursed, rubbing rough over his face, incapable of looking back at you. “I should have stepped in before it ever got that far.”

Your lips pressed weakly to the back of his neck. “Okay.”

He shook his head and stubbornly fought, “I should have—”

“I’m not placating you, Javi, you’re right.” You sighed, leaning forward to rest your head between his shoulders. “It’s okay.”

“Things are bad here, baby… I do bad things and I don’t want to…” curse you with it.

One of your hands scaled up the treacherous landscape of his back, winding your fingers into the short bits of his hair hanging down his neck. “Hiding things from me isn’t going to keep me here. I don’t need you to protect me.”

Again, his head shook, with the last of the strength he could muster. “That doesn’t stop me from wanting to.”

No, you pressed a soft kiss between his shoulders again, you knew that.

Wrapping your hand from the back of his neck around to his cheek, pushing his face towards his shoulder where yours met him. “You’re not a bad man, Javi, it’s just a bad situation.”

His voice broke, weaker than you had ever heard him as his hand reached up to pull yours from his face. “Then why does it feel like this…”

“Because it does,” you sighed. “Because when bad things are happening and you can’t do enough, that kind of sour, guilty sickness is all you can feel.”

There was a knowing bite to your words, a telling drop of your stare from his.

“That and anger.” your chuckle broke through your solemn resolve. “I don’t know, I spend a lot of time as a bystander, I can’t speak to what you do. But I know about seeing a lot of bad and not being able to do enough good to make a difference, I know a lot about that anger.”

The years he had under his belt in Colombia were nothing compared to the years you had on him. Before moving here, before picking up this fight against the narcos as his own, he had been a low-level agent in the States. That wasn’t to say he didn’t see his fair share of violence, but it wasn’t this. It wasn’t a day to day struggle for humanity. The same couldn’t have been said for you. He asked once, how long you had been traveling for, and you had answered mainly with the shrug of your shoulders.

When he pressed on for an actual answer, you shrugged again. “I don’t know, I was in school for journalism and bored out of my mind. A friend suggested a trip to Mexico and I didn’t ever really go back to the States after that.”

Whatever he was feeling, god, it must have been nothing compared to the years of compounded anger settled in your bones. And still, your touch remained the softest thing and your work the most beautiful. You could take the horrible city around you and find a way to highlight the glorious humanity afflicted by the shadows of reality. You could take the ghost of a man he was and capture the unburdened levity of his smile, the happy crinkle of his eye, and the loving center his job forced him to bury deep.

He loved you more than life itself, but more than that, he cherished you. Because for you, he wanted to be better. For you, he wanted to be the man you photographed.

At the very least, he owed you that.

The two of you stayed like that for a while, not knowing how to move from there, but when you finally got up and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead, he at least knew Brazil was off the table.

For one day, one quiet morning, it was enough.

-

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