#pope garcia x reader

[fettuccin-e]

Forever Feels Good

A/N: So yeah. its more santi smut. I rewatched triple frontier recently and yknow how oscar and pedro look absolutely scrumpdiddlyumptious so i had to write some happy, domesticated santi because HE DESERVES SOMETHING GOOD

Description: Sometimes, Santi can't believe that he's actually yours, that you're his. And, as a good husband, he just wants to make his beautiful wife feel good. (w/c: 3.1K)

Tags: Santiago "Pope" Garcia x reader, afab!fem!reader, Santi really likes that she's his wife, pretty domestic, alcohol consumption, oral (r!recieving), unprotected piv (pls wrap it up irl fuck them kids), breeding kink like quite a bit of breeding kink i may have a problem

Santi sometimes forgets that he’s actually married to you. That it’s his ring on your finger, that he lives in a home that the both of you share. 

There’s a part of him, a big part, that looks at you and knows that you’re too beautiful to really be his. With your bright smile and glittering eyes, smoothing out his rough edges and giving something to live for again. It doesn’t feel real, even after years of being married, introducing you as his wife to all of his coworkers and friends, fixing up a house you bought together, living a perfect little white picket fence life that Santi had only thought was a fantasy while in Delta.

He watches you with rapt attention across the bar, grabbing your fruity drink from the bartender while you chat with Frankie at the pool table.

You’re laughing hard to a story that Frankie is telling, Santi’s beer clutched in one of your hands while you brace the other on Frankie’s shoulder. Your cheeks are flushed, your eyes are crinkling at the corners with your grin, and Santi can’t imagine anyone more perfect. 

As your laughter eventually dies down you gaze at Santi across the room, probably unaware that he was already staring, and the breath is nearly knocked out of his lungs as your eyes meet. Your wide smile melts into something softer, intimate even in a room full of people, and his already weak knees want to give out.

He forces himself to walk on shaky legs across the room, setting your drink on your table, fingers itching to touch your soft skin. He spins you around when he reaches you, pinning your back to his front and wrapping his strong arms around your waist while he tucks his face into the crook of your neck.

Your perfume is strongest there, the smell of you invading his senses and swimming through his desperate mind. He vaguely senses Frankie walking away to talk to Will, but he couldn't care less at the moment. Not when he has his wife in his arms, your hair tickling his nose and you giggle echoing in his ears.

Santi presses a kiss to your neck, unable to help himself. “Look so pretty tonight, princesa. Y’wanna let me take you home?” he murmurs quietly into your ear, hearing you suck in a soft breath.

“I don’t know how my husband would feel about that, handsome,” you giggle, and he tugs you just a little bit closer.

“C’mon, baby, I’m sure he won’t mind one bit,” he chuckles lowly. “Can’t let a pretty thing like you go without being taken care of like you deserve.”

“Hm,” you sigh, leaning back against his strong body, “you drive a hard bargain, don’t you?” You reach a hand back to wind your hand into his hair, tugging him up to meet your lips in a sticky kiss. “Promise to take care of me, baby? I’ve been told that I can be greedy. Gonna need you to make me cum as many times as I want.”

Santi feels lightheaded, his vision blurring at the edges. “Fuck, hermosa, anything. Anything you want, you’ll get it, promise I’ll-”

“Hey, lovebirds!” you hear Benny call from the pool table, stick clutched in his hand. He’s disarmingly loud even in a room full of people, your head snaps ahead from Santi’s lips, and you can feel the groan rumble in your husband’s chest at the loss. You smirk to yourself involuntarily, pride blooming in your chest at the fact that you’re the one that can bring Santiago Garcia, ex-military grump with a will of fucking steel, to his knees with a something as simple as a little kiss. 

“You guys gonna get a room or what? Think of the kids!” Benny continues, laughing. Frankie chuckles with him, Will smacks him on the back of the head.

“Turning a little green there, Miller!” you fire back, smiling all the while. “Been a while since you got any? Celibacy is not a good look on you, man.” Frankie laughs harder at that, and even Will chuckles, and it’s Benny’s turn to smack his brother on the back of his head.

You turn your head again to whisper up into Santi’s ear, “As much as I hate to admit it, he might be right.” You shift your hips back, just a little, pressing your ass tight against the bulge of his dick in those tight pants he always wears. Santi curses. 

“You wanna get out of here handsome?”

“Please,” Santi groans, and you laugh softly at his eagerness before you’re grabbing his hand and walking him to the door of the bar, nodding a goodbye at Frankie as you do.

He’s on you the moment you walk through the door of your shared home, pressing you hard against the door with a thick thigh between your legs, pressed tight against your hot cunt through the material of your panties under your skirt. He licks into your mouth like he’s starving for it, like he’ll never get to again, like it’s not the cold metal of his ring on your finger, pressed against his cheek as you cup his jaw.

“So, so fucking pretty for me hermosa, my god. Got everyone in that bar looking at you, but you’re mine, yeah? My wife, fuck-” Santi says into your mouth, choking on the last word, bucking up into you. 

“Bed, Santi, please,” you whine, head spinning with the taste, the smell, the feel of him under your fingertips. Six years of marriage, and you’re both still obsessed with each other the same way you were when you both first met. Clutching into each other like the other will disappear at any moment, like every second together has only been a wonderful dream. He grins into your mouth before taking your hand again, breaking into a jog through your little house and into your bedroom, the both of you giggling like teenagers.

You make him feel young, Santi thinks, laughing into your mouth as he lays you gently onto the mattress. Even with his creaky knees and graying hair, you manage to make him feel young. He presses himself against you, and you mewl, your hips moving in desperate little grinds against the bulge in his jeans. 

“Santi, please,” you choke, gasping softly as his zipper catches on your clit through your panties. You’re clenching around nothing, suddenly so unbearably empty that you could cry from it.

Santi shushes you gently, running his hands under your shirt, rucking it up over your chest. You raise your arms to help him along, and Santi wastes no time in divesting you of your shirt. He tosses it behind him carelessly before leaning down again to lick into your mouth, utterly addicted to the taste of you. 

There’s something about Santi that brings out this part of you, this desperate, needy part that you’d never felt before knowing him. He makes you feel ravenous, animalistic as he towers over you, kissing you like a man possessed.

You reach down to grab his shirt in a fist, shoving it up his stomach until he finally smiles against your mouth, breaking away from your kiss to yank his shirt off, tossing it in the same direction he threw yours. He moves down, trailing hot, sticky kisses and bites to your neck, your collarbone, right between the valley of your tits. 

His thick hands curl around your back, his calluses scratching along your soft skin, raising goosebumps in their wake as he unclasps your bra, dragging it down your arms and leaving you bared to him. It should feel vulnerable, exposed, but you hear Santi groan softly under his breath at the sight of you, and you feel anything but vulnerable. Fuck, you feel powerful, stunning under Santi’s burning gaze.

He sucks one of your nipples into his mouth, swirling his tongue over it feverishly while his other hand, warm and rough, tweaks the other harshly. You can’t help how your back shoots up, how a choked moan escapes your throat. Your hands tangle in his hair, a terribly sexy mess of grey and black, holding him to your chest.

“Fuck, oh God, Santi, Santi, need you so bad baby, please. Please,” you mumble, your mind already hazy as Santi switches nipples, his eyes closed and lost in you. He brings his free hand down, down, under your skirt, and presses a thumb harshly over your clit through your panties. The friction of the cotton is harsh against your throbbing clit, but Santi rubs quick little circles into you, reveling in the whines that escape unbidden from the back of your throat.

“So fucking pretty, princesa. Mi amor, god, mi vida. You’re my fucking life, you know that? So gorgeous, angel, and all mine. Fuck, can’t believe you’re mine, baby.” Santi mumbles against your skin, finally releasing your nipple from his mouth. He continues peppering tiny kisses down your stomach, staring up at you as he does. His mouth doesn’t leave your skin even as he brings his hand up from your clothed cunt, tugging your skirt and panties down your legs. You can feel how soaked you’ve gotten, the way your thighs are slick with your arousal.

“Fuck, hermosa, what’s got you this wet, huh?” He grunts, his voice gravelly and rough.

“You, Santi, it’s all- it’s all you. Since the bar, baby, since before the bar. Fuck, always want you, Santiago, ‘m ready for you all the time.” You tilt your hips up with your words, your entrance throbbing and so desperate for his touch.

“God, bebita,” Santi groans. “Such a fucking slut, huh? You would’ve let me fuck you right in that bar, yeah? Just let me tug you into the bathroom and fuck you as hard as I want. Would've done it too, sweet girl, you get me so fucking hot. In these,” he presses a hot, open-mouthed kiss to your inner thigh, and you twitch as you feel him breathe a warm gust of air right over your desperate pussy. “In these fucking little skirts you like to wear, god. Got the sexiest girl in the fucking world, yeah? Everyone wants you, but I’m the one who gets to have you. I get to have you for the rest of our lives, mi amor.” He’s so close, so fucking close to wear you need him most. “I get to fuck this sweet pussy for the rest of our lives, baby,” Santi breathes.

You nearly scream as he licks a long stripe up your cunt, lapping up some of the mess you’ve already made of yourself. He sucks your clit into his mouth, sucking at it hard and unrelenting. The sensation of it is almost too much, and your thighs clench around his head quickly, before Santi brings a hand up to grab at your inner thigh. He pulls you apart, keeping you spread for him as he licks and sucks and plays with you until you’re already shaking. He keeps you spread with only one of those strong hands, pressing his tongue harshly against your sensitive little clit, and you suddenly feel the thick presence of his other hand, a calloused digit sinking slowly, so slowly into your cunt.

“Santi, Santi, oh fuck, Jesus fucking Christ baby, it’s so- shit, it’s so,” you can hardly get the words out, especially as he crooks his finger up and presses it against your g-spot without any trouble. Santi groans against your clit, sinking yet another finger inside you along the first.

You should be used to it by now, after so long together, but every single time Santi fucks you, it’s like he’ll never get to do it again. He throws himself, his mind, body, his fucking soul, into only making you feel good. It’s nearly sacrilegious, how he worships you, praying with his tongue at the altar of your body.

But it’s not enough, not when you know how it feels when he’s inside, not when you’ve been thinking about his thick cock stretching you out until you feel like you’re about to break. You tangle a hand back into his hair, tugging him harshly away from your pussy. He keeps his fingers inside, spreading you apart as he looms over you, meeting your lips in a sticky kiss. His lips are sticky with your arousal, but you can’t bring yourself to care, gasping, “Please, baby, Santi fuck me, ‘m so empty, need to be filled up, need you to stuff me full.” 

Santi grins, smug against you as he presses a third finger into your tight cunt, relishing in how your body jerks hard in response. “Just a little longer, baby,” he mutters, “Gotta make you cum first, right? Wanna feel this pretty pussy clench around my fingers, fuck baby, you’re so sexy. Want you to cum, princesa. Cum like you fucking deserve.”

You choke on a gasp as he hammers hard into you, overwhelmed tears filling your eyes as he abuses your g-spot with a practiced hand. You can feel your orgasm building inside, threatening to drown you in it’s severity, as Santi leans down again, whispering harshly, like it’s a threat, “Be a good little wife for me, baby, and cum. Now.”

And you can’t do anything but that, whining high as your pussy clenches and gushes all over Santi’s hand, your hips jerking wildly. Santi is murmuring little praises into your ear, but you can hardly hear him over the ringing in your head, the effort it takes to breathe properly again. 

“You okay, mi amor? Need to stop?” Santi whispers, petting his hands across your thighs, calming, but your eyes snap open all the same. 

“Santiago Garcia, if you leave me here without getting fucked, I’m filing for divorce.”

Your statement shocks a quick laugh out of your husband, but he leans down to kiss you all the same. “So greedy, mi amor,” he murmurs into your mouth, and you giggle as he stands quickly, shucking his pants and boxers off before kneeling between your spread legs again.

You gasp softly as he notches the head of his cock against the entrance of your abused cunt, winding your arms around his neck to tug him close. He presses in slowly, agonizingly slow, and you gasp against his mouth. 

You’ve had Santi for years, but taking his cock always feels like the first time, all over again. He groans so lowly it almost sounds like a growl, holding your hips up to meet him as he finally bottoms out inside you. So deep he feels like he’s in your fucking stomach.

“Shit, baby, you’re so fucking wet,” he groans over you, his eyes clenched shut. He draws his hips out and shoves back in quickly, and you can’t do anything but gasp wetly, nails digging into his shoulders as he breaks you open around his cock. “So tight for me, always so fucking perfect.”

“So big, Santi,” you slur dazedly. “Stretching me out so good, it’s so fucking deep, baby.”

“You like me deep, bebita? So deep I’m in your fucking guts? Gonna fill you up, princesa, shit. Get through that fucking birth control, yeah? Get you,” he fucks into you again, hard, “get you fucking pregnant, sweetheart.”

“Oh God,” you whine, mind swimming with the overwhelming mixture of Santi over you, surrounding you, inside you. Fucking you full of him, enough to render your IUD useless, get you pregnant no matter what. “Fuck, Santi, please.” He works himself in and out of you, his thick hands holding onto your hips hard enough to bruise.

“You want it, baby? Want me to fuck a baby into this little pussy? Shit, you’re sucking me in baby, so fucking desperate for it.” He shifts closer, just a little, lifting your hips further into the air to throw you hard onto his cock, and he can’t miss your sweet spot like this. His perfect cockhead just jams into your g-spot at an angle like this, and Santi knows it. “My needy little wife, you wanna cum on this cock? C’mon, do it. Wanna see it baby.”

Tears are finally escaping, leaking slowly from your eyes as Santi fucks into you like only he can, practiced, harsh, unrelenting. You can faintly hear yourself babbling, a mixture of praises, and pleases, and Santi’s name. 

Santi brings a hand from your thigh to press a thick thumb to your over-sensitive clit, and you want to fucking scream. “C’mon baby, show me how good I’m giving you this cock. Show me how good I fuck this pretty pussy.”

“Yes, yes, yes, it’s so good, it’s so fucking good, gonna cum, oh god, gonna give you a baby, Santi, oh god, oh my fucking god-” you gasp, unable to get a full breath into your lungs before you’re cumming again, nails digging hard enough into Santi’s back that there will be marks, marks that Santi will tease you about later when he looks in the mirror, but you can’t care. Not when it feels like your body is on a live wire, muscles and nerves strung taught and pulled apart.

“Just like that, sweet girl,” Santi groans above you, his hips stuttering into you. “Fuck, just like that, so fucking tight for me. Fuck, you’re mine,” he mutters, barely even speaking to you at this point. “Can’t believe you’re fucking mine, mine forever.” 

He’s lost in it, muttering to himself, and you tug him down, trying to ground him back to Earth against your lips as you whisper, “yours.”

Santi kisses you hard as he cums, emptying himself inside you. He wraps you in his strong arms, the both of you shaking softly against each other as you breathe through the aftershock of both your orgasms. He slips out of you at one point, and Santi takes the opportunity to roll you onto your sides. It’s quiet between the both of you for a few minutes as you brush a hand through Santi’s sweaty curls, and he brushes a thumb over your cheek, wiping any tears away.

“Love you so much, Santi,” you whisper after a while, and Santi smiles wide, wider than he ever had before he met you.

“I love you too, baby, more than I can describe.”

“Do you- do you think we could start trying? For a baby?” you whisper, tentative. There will be a bigger discussion tomorrow, about the future, especially if you throw children into the mix. But you need to know, for now.

“Mi amor, mi cielito,” Santi whispers, pecking you softly on the lips. “I would love nothing more.”

[tokkiwrites]

𝓣.he darkest cravings (dilfs)

𝟐��𝟐𝟒 𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐓𝐎𝐁𝐄𝐑 © a spookytokki special

▪︎𝐎𝐂𝐓 𝟏 : Jazz, pearls & older men. ⎯⎯ ᴀ͟ɢ͟ᴏ͟ʀ͟ᴀ͟ᴘ͟ʜ͟ɪ͟ʟ͟ɪ͟ᴀ with Logan Howlett

sᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: Logan shows you that jazz clubs aren't so boring.

➜t̲h̲i̲s̲ ̲s̲t̲o̲r̲y ̲a̲l̲s̲o̲ ̲i̲n̲c̲l̲u̲d̲e̲s̲: sex with a stranger, sir kink, sex in a public space.

▪︎𝐎𝐂𝐓 𝟔 : Sit & Look pretty. ⎯⎯ ʀ͟ᴇ͟sᴛ͟ʀ͟ᴀ͟ɪ͟ɴ͟ᴛ͟s with Santiago 'Pope' Garcia

sᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: Santiago works most days, so that doesn't leave a lot of room for the two of you. but he always finds time to teach you a lesson when you're bad.

➜t̲h̲i̲s̲ ̲s̲t̲o̲r̲y ̲a̲l̲s̲o̲ ̲i̲n̲c̲l̲u̲d̲e̲s̲: masturbaton, orgasm denial, voyeurism, cum eating.

▪︎𝐎𝐂𝐓 𝟏𝟐 Say 'Ahh!'.⎯⎯ ʙ͟ʀ͟ᴀ͟ᴛ͟ ᴛ͟ᴀ͟ᴍ͟ɪ͟ɴ͟ɢ with Joel Miller

sᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: Joel (your dad's best friend) hates it when you talk back to your father.

➜t̲h̲i̲s̲ ̲s̲t̲o̲r̲y ̲a̲l̲s̲o̲ ̲i̲n̲c̲l̲u̲d̲e̲s̲: daddy kink, spanking.

▪︎𝐎𝐂𝐓 𝟏𝟗 : Collar.⎯⎯ ᴘ͟ᴇ͟ᴛ͟ ᴘ͟ʟ͟ᴀ͟ʏ with Wade Willson (Deadpool)

sᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: You're caught off guard when Wade calls you 'puppy'. He's even more shocked when he realizes how much you like it

➜t̲h̲i̲s̲ ̲s̲t̲o̲r̲y ̲a̲l̲s̲o̲ ̲i̲n̲c̲l̲u̲d̲e̲s̲: dumbifiaction (of reader), choking, dry humping.

▪︎𝐎𝐂𝐓 𝟐𝟔 Tears/Tears.⎯⎯ ᴅ͟ᴀ͟ᴄ͟ʀ͟ʏ͟ᴘ͟ʜ͟ɪ͟ʟ͟ɪ͟ᴀ with Sergei Kravinoff

sᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: You can tell whoever whatever you wantㅡ You already know who you belong to.

➜t̲h̲i̲s̲ ̲s̲t̲o̲r̲y ̲a̲l̲s̲o̲ ̲i̲n̲c̲l̲u̲d̲e̲s̲: stalking, breath play, degradation.

[eyelessfaces]

say yes?

santiago garcia x reader

summary: the first time he asks, you say no. the next few times become a game to him.

warnings: refused proposal, angst (with a good ending), mentions of the operation from the movie, tom is mentioned like once or twice (yes this counts as a warning), brief mentions of ptsd and unhealthy ways to cope with it (drinking), a tiny smut scene

tags: gn!reader, fluff, santi being silly, the first few scenes are really angsty but I promise it mainly gets silly and cute after that!!

please mind that for artistic reasons (lmao), the first few scenes are not following a linear chronology (I wanted to point that out in case it gets confusing)

word count: 3k

masterlist | taglist | ao3

updates blog: @eyelessupdates

The tip of your fingers drum nervously against the counter; the sound is awful mixed with the aggressive rumbling of the coffee machine. Like every other morning, you watch the birds outside the kitchen window, pecking through the bowl of mixed seeds, and like every other morning, you feel Santiago’s hand gently resting over your lower stomach as the prickle of his stubble scratches your cheek when he kisses it.

You hear him pull the stool to sit at the bar table, like every other morning, and like every other morning, you give him the coffee you just made – though hesitantly, this time – before you make yourself one.

And just like every other morning, he checks on his phone as he waits for his coffee to cool down, the smoke curling up in the air, swirls visible through the ray of sunshine piercing through the kitchen.

You gaze at him, at the way he scrolls through the news page on his phone, your stomach churning at the fact you’re both trying so hard to act like yesterday was an evening like every other one and like this morning is the natural follow up of a perfectly normal situation.

Then, all you can hear is the coffee machine, your coffee pouring and the birds outside, chirping.

“Are we gonna act like nothing happened?” 

He looks up from his phone, to you. 

“Isn’t that what you want?” he quirks an eyebrow at you, his morning voice deep and raspy.

You huff out a small breath through your nose. “No” the coffee machine stops, but you remain facing Santiago. “I want things to be clear between us.”

He puts his phone down onto the counter, with a small chuckle as both of his hands rub the sleep off of his face. “You made things clear sweetheart.”

—

Your body was curled at the edge of your side, your arm hanging off the bed, fingers brushing the cool floor. Sleep had been hard to find, for the both of you; you felt Santiago move behind you across the bed, turning to face the opposite direction. 

How could either of you possibly sleep tonight?

Your heart ached inside your chest, your mind full and feeling like your head was about to explode, so you couldn’t even imagine how he must feel.

“Santi,” your voice was weak, quieter than you had anticipated. 

He hummed softly in response, just enough to let you know he was listening. 

You waited an instant. It all burned your tongue, everything you could possibly say to him.

“I love you” you reminded him, as if innocently trying to press a bandaid over the wide crack you had managed to create earlier. It felt stupid. You knew this wouldn’t fix the broken pieces.

Maybe it was even making things worse.

Santiago could hear the beating of his own heart reverberating through his ears; for you, the room was dead silent, and it remained like this for what seemed to be an eternity, during which you considered leaving the bedroom to take a breath outside, before he finally said, 

“I know.”

—

The ride back home had been oppressively quiet. Santiago's playlist, though playing at the lowest volume, had somehow managed to mingle with the shitload of thoughts running through your mind, and the rhythmic drumming of his fingers against the steering wheel felt like a desperate attempt to ease the sickening tension between the both of you and to make it feel like it all wasn’t awfully awkward.

Back at your shared home, you watched as he slid his jacket over the coat rack like he was on autopilot before you followed, hanging yours beside his. 

You glanced at him as he mindlessly tossed his cap over the couch. It felt like the right moment to address the elephant in the room – though you weren't truly sure there was a right moment to talk about this.

“Santi I–” you started, words dying in your throat, unsure where you were even going. He turned and sat against the back of the couch, knowing where the conversation was headed, his hands shoving into his pockets. “It’s alright,” he said quietly, his voice low, resigned. “You don’t have to explain anything. I get it.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to marry you.” you affirmed. His gaze hardened, his lips pressing into a tight line as he looked at you. Out of all the things you could say, he hadn’t anticipated this. 

You could distinctly see the hurt and confusion in his flickering eyes. “Then what is this? Because that’s sure as hell what it felt like tonight.” 

You hated this. Hated to see him ache, knowing it was all your fault. Hated to hear the self defensive sarcasm in his voice – hated to see his conflicted furrowed brow. “It's just– not the right time.” you explained. You took a breath, stepping towards him, getting closer, but not too much. You could already see the frustration building up inside him, you didn’t want him to feel cornered.

“You don't know what you're doing. You're still processing what happened in South America” 

It had only been a month; he was still having nightmares, was still dissociating at random times, was still pouring himself a glass at random times of the day, more often than he should.

You knew you were right. You wondered if he thought you were. 

He stared at you, his expression unreadable, and you talked again when you started to see the defensiveness, the way his mouth gaped slightly as he searched for his words.

“You’re not doing this for us. You’re doing this for you, because you’re scared. You’re scared of things slipping away from you, so you jump head first into things to feel like you have control over your life. That’s what this proposal felt like” 

He rubbed the stubble of his chin, nodding, not like he understood or agreed, like he acknowledged what you were saying. His hand buried in his jeans pocket again. "You think this is just because of what happened? I’ve been sure about this for a long time. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t." his eyes darkened, his jaw working as he processed the conversation. “You think I don’t mean it.” he said quietly, more of a statement than a question.

“I'm not sure,” you pinched your lips, stepping towards him, desperate to make him understand. “I mean, I know you mean it. I know. But Santi… Ever since you came back–” you shook your head. His jaw tightened, the crease of his brows becoming more visible. “You’re trying to hold on to something, to control something, because so much of what happened out there was out of your hands. That proposal– it felt like a reaction to everything, like you’re trying to ground yourself, to finally have control over something in your life.”

He shook his head, a small sigh leaving his mouth. “It wasn’t. I just didn’t want to waste any more time.” he nodded, a pleading look over his face. Your heart clenched inside your chest. “I know it may seem rushed after what happened, with Tom and everything, but–” he stopped when he saw you wince. “I want to make the most of my life. With you”

The confession should make you feel all giddy, just like the proposal was supposed to. It just makes your heart tighten inside your chest.

“So, I’m right.” you raised your eyebrows at the way he just proved your point. “You’re doing this because of the operation.” 

You sighed with a shake of your head, your hand trying to rub away the ache lodged inside your skull. “So no, I don’t want to marry you out of emergency. Ask me again when we have it all sorted out, and I’ll say yes”

He nodded, biting his tongue. He knew he didn't have room to talk back on this, because he knew you were probably right.

“Jesus, Santi” you sighed, shaking your head once again, before you disappeared through the hallway. 

—

“I don’t want you to feel like shit over this,” you say, turning away to pick up your coffee. His lips tighten into a sheepish smile before he brings his own cup to his mouth. 

A soft frown grows over his face as he points a finger at you, his mouth still full. “So, next time,” he starts, having barely finished swallowing his sip. “Bigger ring, better speech, delivery?” he asks teasingly, testing the waters. 

You huff out a small, genuine laugh, relieved he’s taking it lightly, and an easy smile grows over his face when he sees yours.

You lean in against the counter, onto your forearms, humming in reflection. 

“Ring is perfect. Speech, delivery… I’d say save your talent in smoothness for our vows” you grin.

“Okay,” he chuckles, “So we're really getting married at some point” he grins, sliding his hand into yours.

“At some point,” you shrug playfully, gently squeezing his hand. “It just has to be the right time” you nod, more serious now.

“The right time…” he hums pensively, nodding slowly.

—

It starts rather innocently, at first, before it becomes a silly little game to him. 

The tension regarding the proposal has gradually eased between the both of you, and you have managed to find your regular dynamic again, not needing to sleep on opposite edges of your shared bed anymore.

It happens for the first time two weeks after the proposal, while you are getting ready to go to work; you’re almost done brushing your teeth, Santiago standing by your side doing the same, when he asks, out of the blue, “Would this be the right time?”

You frown at his reflection in the mirror, unsure what he means, leaning above the sink to spit out your foaming toothpaste. 

“What?” you ask, turning to him – his toothbrush is hanging from his mouth, his hand holding an open ring box. You freeze, once again, the same way you did the first time. 

“Marry me?” he asks, the toothbrush hanging out of his mouth moving as he speaks, his toothpaste-full mouth making the question almost unintelligible. You would think he’s being serious if he didn’t go back to brushing his teeth with his free hand as soon as he asked the question, and if he didn’t immediately follow into breaking into a laugh, rushing to empty his mouth full of toothpaste in the sink. 

“Very funny,” you sigh, your heart still thumping inside your chest as you watch him rinse his mouth.

“Oh you should have seen your face, babe” he chuckles facing you again, a playful grin plastered over his face. 

“Too bad you will never know my answer to the question,” you tease. He huffs out a laugh, wiping away the bit of dry toothpaste in the corner of your mouth before he kisses you. 

The next time it happens is more spontaneous, less staged on his part and more subtle – though still somewhat gently pushy. 

You’re trying to assemble a shelf, reading over and over again the instruction manual that might as well be written in another language; Santiago’s sighing as he checks every side and angle of the half built piece of furniture, trying to figure out where it went wrong, when he confidently affirms, “If we can get through this, I think we can go through marriage.”

And from there, it goes on, and on. 

It's little jokes about it thrown randomly through the weeks, making you playfully hit his chest with the back of your hand.

It's him getting on one knee, looking up at you with soft eyes, before he eventually just ends up tying his shoe.

It's him opening the ring box at the most random situations.

It all gets so frequent you don’t even get surprised when he kneels to grab something from the shelf when you're out for groceries, then shifting to one knee and dramatically pulling the ring box out of his jacket to present it to you.

“Santi, c’mon, your knees!” you urge him up, offering your hand for help, giggling like a teenager as you look around making sure no one actually thinks he's serious. He laughs and gets up, putting the item he was originally grabbing in the cart. “Are you really carrying that ring everywhere with you?” you scold him, pulling on his arm as you cling to him.

He shrugs. “You never know when it might happen,” he grins playfully.

He's not, in the slightest, kidding. He even does it in the middle of sex once.

He's under you, his grip hot and firm over your hips as you roll against his lap, small gasps leaving your lips swollen from kissing; he pulls your upper body down to his, silencing your desperate moans by licking into your mouth as he fucks up into you, one hand pressed against your back, the other gripping your side. 

His hand comes to rest at your neck once he pulls away. “If this doesn’t make you wanna marry me, I don’t know what will” he breathes out, reaching to his bedside table to grab the small box resting there.

You grip his wrist. “Don’t do that to me. You know I’d say yes to anything right now” you whine, drawing a huffed laugh out of him. “You’re not playing fair”

He laughs into your neck, planting a kiss there.

Spring quickly fades into summer, so it gets more and more frequent for you and Santiago to spend your weekend evenings at the boys’; it is at Will’s place this time, so like each time you’re there, they play poker, and because Benny is a sore loser, he ends up hanging out with you by the firepit, further away from the group. 

“So, are you actually gonna say yes one day?” Benny asks, handing you your glass refill, pulling the empty chair by your side to sit down next to you.

You smile, amused as you take your glass from Benny’s hand. You know the subject is no secret to anyone, but it still manages to make your heart leap inside your chest each time someone mentions it.

“It would require him to actually ask” you say with a tilt of the head before you take a sip of your drink.

Benny hums thoughtfully. 

There’s a silence between you before you can hear a sudden commotion of laughs further away and Frankie’s familiar bragging sneer, breaking the prior focused mood of their poker table. You smile as you watch them, your attention drifting back to Benny when he nudges you with his bottle of beer. “You know, for as long as I’ve known Pope, he’s always had commitment issues.” he nods, a small scoff breaking through. “Could rarely keep a girlfriend long enough for us to see her twice. Hell, you should see how many girls he’s had casual sex with, it’s–” 

“Okay Benny, you don’t have to–” you scoff, holding a hand up to stop him.

“I know, I know, it’s not something you wanna hear” he laughs, shaking his head. 

“What I mean is if the Santiago Garcia I know is asking you to marry him, he means it.” he shrugs, taking a sip of his beer.

“I know,” you mutter casually, like he just said the most banal thing ever when in reality your stomach flutters at Benny’s words and you suddenly feel like a teenager with a crush. 

The night goes on and quiets down until eventually, everyone ends up leaving or going to bed; Will offered his sofa bed for you and Santiago to sleep on, and you both agreed to accept, admitting you were too tired to drive back home. 

“So how many games did you win?” you ask him, sliding underneath the thin cover to press yourself against him. 

He chuckles, extending his arm so you can slot close to him. “Only one” 

“You suck”

He grins at your teasing. “I’ll never be worse than Benny” 

You chuckle, pressing your lips against his stubbled cheek. His hand slides down your back, pulling you even closer against him before he slips it underneath your shirt, his thumb dragging back and forth against your bare skin. 

Your mouths meet when his other hand cups your face, his broad hands roaming onto your sides and back when you fully lie over him, the kiss deepening as his tongue slips into your mouth and you start full on making out; you would be fucked if anyone came by the living room to use the bathroom, but either of you could care less.

“Hm, I could ask you to marry me right now” he hums, barely pulling away from your lips; he’s still so close, so close that you can feel him smile. You chuckle, your hand burying into the short curls at the side of his head. “No, I mean it,” he affirms in a serious whisper, adjusting his position under you. “Look, I’m done joking. Marry me”

You back away, enough to be able to read his expression. 

Something in his eyes tells you he might be serious, this time. “Really?”

He nods. “Yes. Fuck, I don’t even have the ring right now.”

You grin softly, shifting to rest by his side again. “You’re good. You’re really good.” you prop yourself onto your elbow, your other hand resting against his chest. “Because you’ve done it so many times throughout literally months and I’m actually surprised now that you’re asking for real” he smiles at that, his hand resting over yours. 

“You know, I’m still waiting for my answer” he grins. 

You shrug playfully. “Eh, you don’t have any ring, so I don’t know–” you tease, stopping when he rolls over you and presses his mouth to yours. You kiss him back, your hands burying into his hair again. “Of course I’ll marry you.”

He smiles contentedly, his eyes softly roaming over your face.

“I meant it the first time I asked” he admits, pinching his lips into a small smile. You mirror it, brushing a thumb over his cheekbone.

“But I get why you said no. And you were right to. But it’s kinda crazy that it’s now happening in Will’s living room” he snorts up a laugh, and you burst out laughing, before you quiet yourself with the palm of your hand against your mouth.

“I know, right? But it could have been at Walmart, so”

He chokes up a laugh, burying his face against your chest. 

“Yeah, it could have been at Walmart.”

—

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& @missdictatorme :p

[bennysmiller]

Cutie

[justreblogginfics]

Okay, first of all:

You are too kind @tropes-and-tales!

And this was me reading this:

I love how it’s Santiago pinning over someone, and that it’s the Miller’s cousin just makes it somehow better, it just makes me love him even more. I also love how the reader is with him too, how after Tom’s death they’re lovingly tender with him; I just love that! This part at the end just cracked me up:

“Pope, Jesus!” 

It’s Will…no, it’s Benny, and then it’s laughter and good-natured groans, and when Santi breaks away and turns to look in the room—startled out of his reverie of kissing you—Frankie raises his hands to his mouth, hooks his fingers there and lets out a piercing wolf-whistle that makes the Miller sisters clap and cheer at the show you and Santi have put on for them.

Only Will and Benny look peeved.  Will shakes his head, crosses his arms over his chest.  Benny calls out, “that’s my cousin, asshole,” which makes a wave of laughter rise and sweep towards where the two of you stand.

If this isn’t family then I don’t know what it is! 😂

The Fourth Year

For the super-late Winter Prompts (2023 Edition)! The master list can be found here!

This one was requested by the lovely and supportive @justreblogginfics (I mean, honestly? Is there anyone more supportive than this lovely person?)

"From Under The Mistletoe prompts: #13 (snogging and not realizing other people are present) with Santiago Garcia"

CW:  Light angst (talk of Tom's death); pining (mutual); kissing; lot of typos.

Word Count:  1839

The Miller brothers put on the same party every December, a chaotic blend of their large and extended family and their friends.  Two disparate groups who somehow blend together seamlessly:  Tom and his wife have an easy friendship with a Miller sister and her husband.  Frankie, ridiculous as it seems, always falls in with a great-aunt, a crotchety old woman who has a soft spot for Frankie and his big brown eyes—and Frankie enjoys the benign flirting, the old woman’s stories, and most of all, her famous rum-laced chocolate cake in the shape of a Yule log.

Santiago?  He has his own benign flirting with you—a cousin of the Miller boys.  He sees you once a year at this party.  For three years now, he’s pined after you.  It’s the same cycle, over and over. 

November comes, and he realizes he’s a month away from seeing you again.  He hypes himself up.  He gives himself pep talks in the mirror, feels like an idiot afterwards, but he gasses himself.  Tells himself that he’s smart and funny and good-looking, that of course you’d love to go out with him sometime.

Three days before the party, he gets a haircut, gets his curls trimmed up. 

The day of, he feels a rare buoyant hope.  He showers, shaves.  He dresses and hopes he looks good but not like he is trying to look good.

The drive over, he plays his hype-playlist.  This is the year, he promises himself.  This is the year I get my shit together and make a move.

Three years of this cycle.  Three years of promising himself that he’ll make a play for you, and three years of that promise disintegrating the moment you see him and call out, “hey there, handsome!” as a greeting.  The moment he turns and sees you, every plan flows out of his brain and Santiago Garcia is struck dumb, his tongue clumsy and heavy in his mouth and unable to form coherent words.  You’re beautiful to him, and trolling your social media throughout the year can never prepare him for seeing you in person.

Smiling as you walk towards him.  Then the sudden feeling of you in his arms as you hug him, on your tiptoes as you wrap your arms around his shoulders and kiss him on the cheek.  The scent of you—your light perfume, your shampoo, maybe a bit of wine on your breath.  The lovely sound of your laughter as you joke around with him, then the feel of your hand on his arm, steering him deeper into the Miller home as you ask all about his year.

Three years of Santiago Garcia going chicken-shit and letting the moment pass him by.  His courage always fails him.  He always leaves with that sick feeling in his stomach, and he wakes in the morning with the depressing realization that he has to wait a whole year to see you again.

-----

This is the fourth year.  Santi could lie and say he finally has the courage he’s been missing, but the reality is that the driving emotion is sadder.

He’s not brave.  He’s just tired.

He’s tired of this game.  Tom is dead.  Frankie is in recovery.  He feels adrift in his own life; he takes contracts overseas, but only because he doesn’t feel like he has a home. 

The fourth year goes differently.  He skips his usual haircut, so his curls are a little longer, slightly unruly.  He feels less buoyant hope and more steely determination.  He drives to the Miller home in silence, the window down and his arm out the window as the warm Florida evening turns into night.

And the moment he crosses the threshold of the door, you’re there.  You’ve changed it up too:  you don’t shout “hey there, handsome!” 

Instead, your face lights up for a moment before you school your expression into something more somber.  You walk up to him, and you pull him into a hug—but this hug is tighter, longer.  And you whisper into his ear that you’re sorry about Tom, but you’re so glad he’s okay, and when Santi parts from you, he can see the way your eyes glitter with unshed tears.

“Don’t scare me like that again, okay?” you ask, and Santi wonders if his pining has been one-sided, as he always assumed.

-----

The fourth year.  Tom’s absence seems to take up some space.  The party is slightly subdued, less raucous than in years past.  Frankie settles in with Great-Aunt Roseanne and her boozy chocolate cake.  Benny and Will circulate with their sisters, all four of them in felt reindeer antlers.

Santi leans in the doorway between the living room and kitchen and just watches.  It’s the remainder of his found family, the Millers and Frankie.  He doesn’t want to lose the lesson in Tom’s death, which is that life goes on but can end in a blink.  Santi gets lost in his thoughts (those memories of South America, the slack, heavy weight of Tom’s body), and he startles when someone touches his arm.

He turns and sees that it’s you.  You smile at him, tentative, and ask if he’s okay.

“Yeah, great.”  He clears his throat from its roughness, then smiles back at you.  “How are you?”

You shrug, make a dismissive gesture with your hand.  If Santi roams the planet on contract work, you are the opposite.  You have a steady job, always in the same spot, and you have all the trappings of a stable life.  You have a home and a mortgage, a dog, a fish tank full of tetras, a garden where you grow four different types of tomatoes and six different types of hot peppers.  You belong to a hiking club, and you organize litter pickups with the local Girl Scout troop.

In other words, you have a full and robust life, and Santi yearns for even a tiny bit of space in it.  He feels like he could curl up at your feet like a dog and be happy just to be near you.

The two of you chat, and maybe this is the result of Tom’s death too:  you get a bit behind the surface-level chatting you usually do each year.  When you ask about his work, he’s honest:  he tells you it’s lonely and dangerous and how he wants to stay in the States. 

When he asks about your year, you admit that you’re parents divorced, and that it hit you harder than you thought it would.

“I’m sorry,” he tells you, and you do something you have never done in front of him:  you laugh, and it sounds bitter.

“Please, Santi.”  You roll your eyes and shake your head.  “I have a charmed life.  Whining about my parents divorcing, especially with me being an adult myself?  People have it worse.”

He’s never heard you sound like this, and he’s never heard you be self-deprecating.  He puts an arm around your shoulders and pulls you into a side hug, and a moment later you wind your arm around his waist.

“Doesn’t mean you can’t hurt too,” he chides you gently.  “Suffering isn’t an Olympic sport.”

You don’t reply.  You rest your head against his side, and he likes the weight of it, the casual intimacy of holding you like this.  Maybe you like it too because you don’t pull away.  You keep your arm around him, and after a long moment, your head lolls to look up at him…but your gaze falls on something else.

“We’re under a bunch of mistletoe.”  Santi glances up and sees the sprig of silvery-green leaves and white berries, and then he glances down at your upturned face.  You’re smiling at him, and there’s a teasing quality there that is familiar from the previous three years.  It hits him that you aren’t just the gorgeous, teasing woman from years past.  You’re also someone who’s been hurt by your parents’ failed marriage, and someone who feels like you can’t really mourn it, and you’re far more complex—and human—than he ever realized.

It makes his superficial infatuation slide right off the cliff into wonderful, terrible love, just like that.

So Santi doesn’t tease you back.  He leans down towards your upturned face, and he moves slow enough to watch your reaction.  You don’t recoil or pull away.  Your eyes widen a bit, but you smile up at him…and you move towards him, meet him part way.

The first tentative press of his lips to yours, closed-mouth.  Quick.  Over before he realizes it.  But then a second kiss, bolder, lasting longer.  Closed mouths again, but the third is where you part your lips against his, where he breathes you in, and the awkward side hug ends as he turns you gently towards him and you lay your hands against the back of his neck.

Then the fourth kiss, and Santi stops counting them because he feels the soft press of your tongue against his, and you taste like the tart wine you like to sip and he hopes you don’t mind his own hoppy, yeasty beer-breath and you must not because you deepen the kiss, lick against the inside of his mouth.  Santi realizes that you’re actually the one leading this, not him, and he’s grateful that you are braver than he is.

The rest of the party fades away.  The low roar of laughter and music and conversation fades and Santi is left with just the roar of blood in his own ears, the barely audible whimper you make as his hands find your hips, as he pushes you gently backwards into the doorway—

“Pope, Jesus!” 

It’s Will…no, it’s Benny, and then it’s laughter and good-natured groans, and when Santi breaks away and turns to look in the room—startled out of his reverie of kissing you—Frankie raises his hands to his mouth, hooks his fingers there and lets out a piercing wolf-whistle that makes the Miller sisters clap and cheer at the show you and Santi have put on for them.

Only Will and Benny look peeved.  Will shakes his head, crosses his arms over his chest.  Benny calls out, “that’s my cousin, asshole,” which makes a wave of laughter rise and sweep towards where the two of you stand.

Santi turns and looks at you.  You look sheepish but not guilty, and you grin up at him, give him a shrug.

“Sorry,” you say.

“Don’t be.”

“I wanted to do that for, like, the last two years.”

He tries to play it cool, your admission.  It’ll hit him later, how he could be two years further along with you if he’d just been a bit braver, but Santiago Garcia will never be able to summon up much regret about it, in the end:  because now, in the fourth year of knowing you, you shrug again then take his arm in yours, lead him to a more private part of the home, and you kiss him again.

[my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction]

One bed + "Let me warm you up" + Santi

SCREAMING!

Personal Heater

Santiago Pope Garcia x afab!Reader • Rating: 18+ pals • Masterlist• ao3• want to be tagged? | request info • buy me a coffee? •

Summary: It's absolutely fucking freezing, luckily Santi is here to warm you up.

A/N: Sorry this took so long!

Warnings: Swearing, kissing, oral sex (f!receiving), p in v sex, multiple orgasms, fingering, Santi kind of having a bit of an exhibition kink, overuse of italics, not beta read, please let me know if I've missed a warning.

Word Count: 2740

You’re sure Frankie is up to something by putting you and Santi in the same room. Certain of it. But even he couldn’t be blamed for the absolutely abysmal weather. 

“It’s fucking freezing.” You grumble, failing to suppress a shiver as you enter the bedroom. Your day clothes are in your arms, bundled up into a ball you can quickly shove into your suitcase. Part of you thinks you should have just lugged your bag into the bathroom to change. 

You’re dressed in a long sleeved pyjama top, and have tucked your jogging bottoms into your socks to try to stave off the cool air. 

“Come here, I’ll warm you up.” Santi’s already in the bed, the covers bundled around himself protectively. He wiggles his eyebrows at you, and you’re almost tempted to throw the clothes you were wearing at his head. But he would probably like that. 

You settle for a cheery, “Fuck off.” as you put your clothes away. 

“I’m serious,” He grins, “nice and warm in here.” 

“That’s because you’re hogging all the blankets,” you tut, but there’s no heat in it. You climb on the bed and yank the duvet away from him. 

“Nooo, you’re letting all the warm air out.” He's a little tipsy, you know that. He’d had two too many glasses of that fancy Japanese whiskey Will had brought, not drunk, just pleasantly buzzed and a little less guarded than he would usually be. 

He grabs your arm lightning fast and somehow flips you perfectly into the bed and on your side. Before you can even get a word out he’s pulling the covers back over you both and snuggling up to you, his chest pressing against your back. How is this idiot so warm when he’s only wearing boxers?

You stiffen, you really should protest or at least tell him to not wrap his arm so securely around your waist. But, fuck, if he isn’t warm. Like a little personal heater blasting the icy air away. And despite the uncertainty ringing in your head, you relax into his embrace. It was just to help with the temperature. That was all. 

Somehow he inches closer, breathing hot onto the back of your neck. “Hmm, you smell nice.” He mutters, as if that was a completely normal thing to say to a friend who you were sharing a bed with. 

“I’m not going to sleep with you Santi.” 

“But that’s what beds are for?” You can hear the cheeky smile in his voice.

“You know what I mean.” 

“No?” He’s enjoying this far, far too much.

“I’m not going to fuck you. There, happy?” 

“No and why?”

You shift a little, turning so you can look at him over your shoulder. “What?” 

“No, I’m not happy,” he grins, “and why won’t you fuck me?” 

He speaks too quickly for you to get a word in edgeways. 

“Tired? I’ll fuck you if you want, you don’t need to lift a finger.” 

“Santi,” You really do try to put a firm, commanding tone in your voice, but it doesn’t come out very convincing at all. 

“We fucked on Monday, you liked that.” 

“Santi-”

“And three times on Sunday, so-”

“Santi.”

He tries to bite back his smile, pressing closer to you. “I like it when you get all authoritative.” 

You give him a look and he lightly bites at your shoulder. Your relationship with Santi was… god you didn’t want to say complicated. Unconventional. Friends with benefits was too casual, but you weren’t dating. And you haven’t told anyone, even though he was regularly blowing your back out several times a week.

“I know you want to… if you really don’t, tell me now, but I think there’s something else going on here.” He stares at you with those stupidly large eyes, the ones you’re sure he reserves for mental manipulation of the highest order. 

You want to say something back, something smart to put him in his place. But you can’t think of a god damned thing. So you stare at him, with a slowly weakening frown while his own small smile spreads. 

“I think,” he shuffles a little higher, so he can press his lips to the shell of your ear and grind the semi hard outline of his cock against the swell of your ass. “That if I,” he thumbs at your waistband, snapping it softly before he slowly slips his fingers underneath, “just touch here,” he glides down brushing against your clit and the edge of your folds, “fuck.” He swallows, his hips bucking instinctively. “God, you’re so wet. Did you make yourself come in the bathroom?” 

Heat floods your veins and he groans, his eyes rolling back at the thought. 

“That desperate not to be seduced by me?” He teases, lightly biting your ear and sinking his fingers in deeper. 

You gasp, arching towards his touch and the thick stretch of his fingers. He kisses your neck greedily as he gives you what you want, moving so that he can slip further inside and stoke while his thumb rubs rhythmically against your clit. 

You squirm under his touch, trying to hold back your moans. Santi hooks his free hand under your pyjamas and pulls them down to your thighs.

“Tell me why? Hmm?” He purrs, his voice heavy. “Why-”

“I don’t want the others to hear us.” You whisper, insecurity twisting in your chest even as pleasure grows in your stomach. 

“Oh, baby,” he purrs, kissing along your jaw to your lips and licking into your mouth when you moan. “I didn’t take you as shy?”

He presses firmly on your walls, a spot he has memorised, and your eyes roll back. “Santi,” you swallow, trying to keep your voice down. 

“You are a bit of a screamer with me though,” he teases, his voice controlled despite the rapid, desperate beat of his heart. He easily manoeuvres you onto your back. “I don’t want to give the other guys a complex,” he increases his speed a fraction, biting his lip at the sound of your slick and placing the palm of his free hand over your mouth. 

He leans closer. “Don’t want to make them ashamed that they can’t make someone come as hard as I can.” 

You moan desperately against his hand, your eyes closed tight. You miss his love sick expression as he watches you, how his mouth parts as you tense. 

“God baby, please.” He harshly whispers, groaning as you grind down on his fingers. “Let me see you come.” 

You’re more than thankful for the hand against your lips as your pleasure crests and drags you down into bliss. Your thighs shake, back arching as your orgasm is dragged from you and then snaps like elastic. 

You breathe hard, spaced out and a little dazed until you feel Santi completely yanking off your pyjama bottoms and burying his face between your legs. He moans headily, loudly, too high off your pleasure to stop himself as he sinks his tongue inside and drinks down your release. 

His hands squeeze your thighs, encouraging you to practically suffocate him as he licks and swirls. You bite your lip and grab hold of the back of his head as you buck into the heat of his mouth. 

He ruts against the mattress, trying to relieve the smallest fraction of the painful ache between his legs.

“Santi,” you manage not to scream. “Please,” you gasp, pleasure burning along your veins, your previous orgasm hardly dying down before it was ignited again.

In desperation, you hastily grab a pillow and shove it over your face. Your lungs fill with the scent of fresh linen, your fingers digging into the material as your back arches. 

He laps at your folds greedily, the sound echoing around the room in time with the squeak of the bed springs. Gently, he presses two fingers inside, stroking again at the same spot that had made you fall apart only moments ago. 

This time his touch is lighter, slow and steady as he rubs, a sharp juxtaposition to the quick and firm movements of his eager tongue. 

You gasp, the air catching in your lungs and Santi groans. The syrupy sound of his enjoyment is what throws you over the edge. You come hard, your muscles shaking as you spasm and scream into the pillow. Your vision whites out as pleasure explodes along your nerves, robbing you of thought and strength for gloriously long seconds. 

He works you through it, slowing his movements as you relax.

Languidly, he sits up and pulls the pillow off your face. He’s grinning, far, far too pleased with himself. 

You pretend to smack him in the side with the pillow, stopping before you make contact, and he flinches, giggling. 

The bottom half of his face is wet, your cum shining against his stubble. He lays down next to you on his side, his head propped up on his elbow. 

His left hand traces patterns along your stomach. “Love how quick you can come after you already have.” For a moment you think about teasing him a little, but instead, you give his hand a little squeeze. “Only ever done that with you.” 

“Fuck,” He buries his face into the pillow under your head, groaning as his cock throbs, “don’t give me a bigger ego here.” 

You snort, and it quickly turns into a giggle as he presses light, tickly kisses along your neck. He grins, moving closer as you try to squirm away. “Thought you liked my kisses?” 

You shift, biting back your laughter, and your hip brushes against his aching erection.

Santi moans low in his chest, his throat bobbing. 

“Shh,” You giggle again, playfully clapping your hand over his mouth, “I’m gonna have to be the one to keep you quiet.” 

You mean it as a tease, nothing more. But he shivers, his eyebrows pinching together as he presses his face into your palm and whines. 

Heat stirs in your stomach. You bite your lip. “Maybe you’d like that?” You whisper, your voice barely audible. “Maybe you want to just…”

His eyes are hazy when he opens them, dark and pleading. He nods softly, keeping his mouth firmly against your hand. As he swallows, his throat bobs, his fingers tightening on your hip. 

“Lay down.” You say softly and he moves without hesitation, the words barely out of your mouth before he’s flat on his back against the mattress. 

He tucks his hands under the pillow, hooking his fingers around the edge of the headboard. You don’t give him a chance to give you a nervous look, to get all in his head about asking for something he wants. 

You pull his boxers down to his knees and Santi raises his hips, wriggling a little to help you slide them off. His cock bounces free, hard and leaking as it snaps back against his stomach, looking practically painful with how aroused he is. 

You place one hand back onto his mouth while you kneed his balls with the other. His reaction is instantaneous, his back arches as his moan vibrates against your palm, his eyes screwed up tight. 

You bite back a smile as you run your fingers up higher, languidly tracing the underside of his length as he twitches under you. 

Santi’s fingers tighten around the bottom of the headboard, his knuckles paling as he bucks up into your hand. 

He moves his face to the side slightly, just enough so that he can speak clearly, “Please can you, can you sit on me and come again?” 

You go to pull your hand away from his mouth completely, but he shakes his head and presses his lips back to your palm before looking up at you with sweet eyes. Okay, he still wanted that. 

You give him a soft look and kiss the tip of his nose, making the corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles before you sit on his lap and line yourself up with him. He’s warm under your hand, hard and thick, and when he starts to sink inside he lets out a long, deep groan. 

For a moment, you’re almost sure he’s taking the piss, purposefully being as loud as possible. But his eyes have rolled back, his body tense and shaking. And you are very sure none of this is for show. 

He stretches you wide as you ease down, your body singing as he slips deeper and deeper. You drop your hips a little faster, revelling in the whine and moan Santi rewards you with. When he’s finally completely sheathed you lean forward, turning his chin ever so slightly to the side so that you can whisper in his ear. 

“Fuck Santi,” you put on a bit of a voice, just to rile him up. 

He moans again and you giggle. 

“You like this don’t you?” You mutter as you start to slowly roll your hips against him. “Got a bit of a thing for being heard?” 

He shakes his head, but you can see the glean in his eyes. He most definitely did. 

“Want everyone to know you’re getting your brains fucked out?” 

He groans loudly, his muscles flexing as he fights the urge to thrust up rabidly. Instead, he rocks slowly with you, more than happy to let you control the pace. 

Pleasure flows and pulses along your skin, twisting a turning as you move your hips. It starts to set deeper, pulling at your bones and demanding you to give in and fully chase the sensation. You lean up slightly, taking your palm off his mouth so that you can prop yourself up with both hands on either side of his head. 

“Oh fuck, baby, please,” he groans, panting. There’s no fucking way that the room next door can’t hear him. “Fuck, yes.” 

He spreads his legs, making you dip forward and practically growling as he thrusts up into your tight, wet heat. 

“Santi,” you hiss, gasping for air as he robs you of it. Spiking the pleasure in your blood to dizzying levels. 

“Fuck, yes, yes, yes,” he swallows, pulling one hand away from the headboard so that he can press against the small of your back, pushing your clit against his pubic bone so that he can buck and roll and hit just right every single time. 

You gasp and he groans, whining as you pant and share oxygen. He leans up so he can kiss you roughly, all tongue and teeth and moans. His fingers tighten over your skin, his breathing hitching. 

The bed springs creak, the headboard smacking against the wall with every bounce. And still Santi manages to be louder than all of them. 

The head of his cock brushes deliciously deep across your walls and you tense, your pace faltering as pleasure presses along your nerves, so close that you’re ready to burst. 

“Fuck,” he bites his lip, pulling back a fraction so that he can stare up at you, and angles his hips to hit there again. 

Your thighs shake, the pleasure so close and intense you forget how to breathe. 

“Fuck, god, yes,” he hits there again and again and again, his lips parted and desperate. “God, keep squeezing me like that!” He gasps, convulsing as you bury your face into his neck and bite down to stifle your moans. 

Your orgasm hits you in a rush, liquifying your brain as your body moves instinctively, pulling every single drop of pleasure it can.

Santi follows you seconds later, swearing and cursing and muttering praises as you milk his cock for all he’s worth. It’s like he can’t stop coming, can’t come down from the high as he spills himself inside you and floats on ecstasy. 

He holds you close as you both recover, stroking your back soothingly. 

“I think I lost brain cells.” He mutters.

You giggle, “What?” 

“I genuinely think you fucked some of my brain out.” He repeats and you laugh harder. 

There’s a pause before he speaks again. “You feeling warmer now?” 

You tut and lift yourself up a little so you can give him a gentle, playful shove. He catches your wrist before you can and lightly bites the side of your hand. 

“Oi,” You snort, “I’ll have to gag you.” 

He groans and gives you a dark look, his softening cock twitching inside you. “Next time.” 

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[clazaries]

The Thin Line Between Victory and Survival NSFW!

(Santiago "Pope" Garcia x f!soldier!reader)

Summary: Having been newly promoted, your first mission with Delta Force goes wrong and you have to deal with the consequences of going against Santiago's orders

w/c: 6.6k

Warnings: NSFW! war environment, slight knife play, masturbation (f!reader), oral (m!receiving), self-edging, orgasm denial, choking, dom!Santi, p in v, slight fluff at the end, think that's everything?

a/n: reader's callsign is 'Midge'. this takes place after the events of triple frontier but where the gang are still active members of Delta Force. I kinda imagined Santiago as Ghost from COD (cos daddy)

ENJOY!

***

“Frankie. Sit rep?”

“ETA 30 seconds. Sit tight.” 

“Rog’.” Santi’s gravelly voice worms its way into your ear in harsh rumbles as you begin to take position at the edge of a sandy cliff, overwatching the vast desert valley ahead of you. His voice shakes the nerves inside you that are already on high alert. You remind yourself to turn down your comms when you can afford the chance. “Midge, how copy?” 

You perk to attention at the sound of your nickname and respond accordingly. “Loud and clear, sir. In position. Eyes on Frankie.” 

Towards the heart of the valley, Frankie’s distant figure calmly approaches the enemy-riddled farm under the cover of darkness and you watch with bated breath through a window of green. Directly ahead of you, even further away on the mirroring side of the valley is your superior Santiago “Pope” Garcia, providing overwatch just as you are. You can’t see him but you know he’s there, like a ghost lurking in the shadows. Even though you are just as concealed as he is, you have this disconcerting feeling that he’s very much capable of plucking you out, watching you.

You readjust yourself nervously.

It’s incredibly dark with nothing but the twinkling stars and Jupiter’s bright sparkle to keep anyone sane. Without the night vision goggles, you are a lost hope. They sit squarely on your nose, grinding the bone and encasing your eyes, and the sweat trickling down your neck is no home comfort either, but now is not the time to be complaining. You have a job to do. 

Having been recently promoted for your sharp shooting and bright mind, you’re no longer an extra in someone else’s play, you’re the real deal now. You’re still taking orders no less, except now word doesn’t have to pass through at least three ranks above you like a game of Chinese Whispers before you receive the order. 

Every mission is different but your response has always been the same: subdued nerves to begin, then before long, you’re in your element and the job gets done. However, this task in particular has your heart beating a little harder and you don’t sense it settling any time soon. The whole mission is unnerving. It’s just you, Frankie and Santiago, sent out into the middle of nowhere to retrieve controls for a weapon that’s been missing from the US government for three years. The very same that is currently being protected and fortified by an armada of Russian extremists. Every minute in between the initial briefing and your current breath has been spent quietly fretting about it.

This mission alone has introduced a lot of firsts for you; first time working with Delta Force rather than for, first time working off the grid, first time working in a squad with fewer than 5 comrades beside you, first time being completely and hopelessly outnumbered…

First time feeling extremely, extremely doubtful. 

“Remember, this is a covert operation and completely off the grid so keep it quiet. Frankie, I want you in and out before they even get a whiff that you were ever there, and Midge--” you gulp, “keep Frankie alive.”

“Yes, sir.” You and Frankie’s voices ring through simultaneously. By now, Frankie has approached the back door of the barren barn, a large building that no doubt houses a number of enemies inside. Through your scope, you witness Frankie infiltrating the barn, his voice verbally confirming it seconds later. “I’m in. Going dark.”

“Copy that.” 

The second you lose sight of him you take a hefty breath, letting it flood your lungs while the waiting game begins. From out here, there’s nothing you can do for him except warn him of any outside movements. As of right now, he’s on his own, doing what he does best. 

“Stay sharp.” 

You keep quiet on your side of comms, too paranoid to risk speaking unnecessarily. Instead, you keep your wits on what’s in front of you. There’s no movement, not even a breath of wind to shake the lonely tree that stands at the far end of the farm and it feels as though time has stood still. If it wasn’t for the mouse scuttling underneath your sniper stand, you would’ve thought so.

The little creature skips and hops over the rocks to your right, stopping every couple of seconds to clean the dust from its ears. Cute. You quirk a smile at the thought of something as simple as a mouse breaking the tension that’s riddling your bones. God knows you need it. Every fibre of your being is buzzing with uncertainty and the heavy nauseating feeling in your stomach is enough of a sign that something about this mission just isn’t right. Some would call it instinct, others would call it a load of rubbish, regardless, the feeling is there and you’re not willing to ignore it. 

In all honesty, you would’ve carried out this mission entirely differently if you had the authority. But that’s the thing. You don’t. Outranked and out-experienced by the two men alongside you, you had no option but to play by their rules. Where you would’ve gone all-in, they chose to keep their cards close to their chests. 

You never agreed with the idea that less is more. Not in the military. 

Ten agonising minutes pass by. Nothing has been said and nothing warrants being said. Everything about you is screaming to point out the obvious; that something clearly isn’t going right. Frankie should’ve been out by now.

“I don’t like this. It’s too quiet. Nothing’s happening.” 

Santiago instantly replies, a slight ring of chagrin evident in his tone. “Good. Means we haven’t been compromised.” 

“Then why isn’t he out?” 

“Patience, Midge. Keep focussed.” 

You’re seconds away from overstepping boundaries and saying something you shouldn’t, but the moment you open your mouth, you spot a black vehicle off in the distance, quickly morphing into view as it speeds across the expanse of the valley with a plume of dust trailing behind it. It’s heading directly towards the farm. 

“Be advised. Vehicle inbound coming in from the north. Pope, you see it?” 

“Affirmative. Six Russians inside and likely armed. Do. Not. Engage. Frankie, get the hell on with it and get those controls.” 

The vehicle approaches and screeches to a stop, the occupants immediately disperse from the vehicle with rifles in hand. Fear shoots through you, wide eyes pinned on the door Frankie entered through, desperate for it to open again and see Frankie escape but alas, no sign of him. “Come on, come on, come on…” 

“Enemies heading towards the front entrance.” 

“I’ve got a shot on two of them.” 

“No. Stand down. Do not engage. They don’t know we’re here, we can’t draw attention to ourselves.” Pope’s voice rages through your earpiece again and you wince, both from his tone and volume. 

“Why the fuck are we here then?” 

“To prevent a ruckus from happening. If we engage, we’ll be the reason for it. Now shut up and keep your eyes peeled. Frankie, for Christ’s sake, you better have those controls.” 

You listen intently for his voice, hoping that he’s succeeded and he’s on his way back, but when you hear a slight crackle, a groan and high-pitched frequency piercing through the comms, you assume the worst. Your heart stops dead in your chest when you hear a shot being fired, its echo carrying the weight of dread right to your position. “Fuck! Santi--” 

“Frankie! Do you copy?” 

Short, resounding booms resonate from the farm and you’re left with no doubt that Frankie’s position has been compromised, leaving his life and the controls to this weapon at stake. You can’t afford to lose both and you’re certain that Pope knows that too, so why isn’t he giving the order for backup? 

“He needs help!” 

“Stay put! I can’t risk losing two of you. This is Pope to Ironhead, how copy?” 

You drown out William’s voice with worries of your own, constantly watching for signs of Frankie’s survival but to no avail, you find none. You knew this mission was never going to succeed. Your instinct was right. And based on that fact alone, what’s to stop you assuming that when your gut instinct is now telling you to go and extract Frankie and the controls yourself, it’s the right decision no matter what your orders are?

“Fuck this.” With haste, you pack up your equipment, whipping it over your shoulder with a new-found surge of adrenaline pumping through you. The hill you’re perched on isn’t tall, but it is steep, so as you run down the slope, your body falls faster than your legs can keep up. The howl of air blows past your ears and the clinking and clanking of your equipment rattles with each step. Even still with the cacophony of sounds, nothing can be louder than your boss’s rage. 

“Midge! What the fuck are you doing? Get back to your position!” 

You don’t bother responding because you’re too out of breath…and mostly because you’re shit scared. When you hear his voice again, you’re at the door Frankie entered through with a shaky hand holding your pistol and the other tightly gripping the handle. 

“Midge, so help me God, if you take another step--” 

“We can’t leave Frankie!”

“We don’t know if he’s still alive.”

“But we know the controls are in there, if we can’t get one, we’ll get the other.”

“NO! You get back here right fucking now!” The scratch of his growl descends down your body, making you curl your toes. Suddenly, a farm full of Russian extremists doesn’t seem to be your biggest threat…

“I’m going in.” 

A grunted sigh crackles through the comms as Pope watches you push through the door into chaos. 

“Just so you know, if you somehow survive this, I will kill you myself.” 

~~~~

Miraculously, you did exactly that. You survived. Not only did you extract Frankie’s beaten body and save his life, you also retrieved the controls before they got away. You can’t deny that the odds were slim and it did nearly cost both of your lives, but at the expense of breaking a few rules and a few bones, you made it. And you won’t apologise for a single bit of it sitting here in an unused briefing room with Santiago. 

The tale of twists and turns didn’t end when you and Frankie both made it out alive only hours ago, in fact, it continues with Santi; a man with chains around his heart, a shield around his mind and a look of steel donning his face. It is fair to say his reputation precedes him, especially since his comrade Redfly died years ago. Before you met him officially, you had only ever heard of his emotionless gaze, his inhuman self-restraint and deeply enigmatic personality, and you found it strange that no one told you what it was like to be around him. Until Frankie told you that how you felt being in a room with him could not be explained through words, it was something you had to experience for yourself. 

Frankie was right. You had to be there to see that he was stronger, colder, smarter, more intimidating than anyone had let on. His presence wasn’t one to be easily swallowed. It was obvious that strangers couldn’t settle the unease they felt when he walked into the room; cautious eyes, bitten lips, fidgeting muscles. They succumbed to his eerie, silent domination very quickly. Quicker if those dark eyes were locked on you. They were seared into the back of your mind the moment they landed on you for the first time, remembering how you just couldn’t decipher the encrypted messages they hid. Whoever stated that the eyes were windows to the soul had clearly never met Santiago.

But tonight, that restraint is gone. He is positively seething. Outwardly, publicly, irrationally seething. In the dimly lit room, he stands menacingly in the corner where the light doesn’t quite reach, yet still you can see his knuckles tensing and untensing with each breath he takes. You don’t say a word, quietly picking at the forming scab on your knuckle, and in your head, you speak the words you don’t have the conviction to say out loud. 

“Do you have any idea how fucking reckless you are?” 

You slowly peer up to him, his words still processing as you narrow in on him. “Reckless? With all due respect, my actions saved a man’s life and finished the mission. What part of that is reckless?” 

“The part where you didn’t follow my orders! You went rogue. Off plan. Completely out of line. If you don’t follow orders, you don’t know how it will end. I could’ve lost you both unnecessarily.” 

“Could’ve,” you mutter.

He begins to loom closer, taking every word of yours like they’re a sour taste in his mouth. In muted tones, he whispers out to you. “What?” 

“You said you could’ve lost us both. But you didn’t.” The words feel like liberation. It’s the first time you’ve ever behaved like this. It’s so uncharacteristic but you just feel so insulted by his lack of gratitude or appreciation that anger bubbles inside you, spitting out words that you know you shouldn't, turning you into someone you definitely aren’t. You are usually a rule follower, you are usually obedient, and you usually respect authority, but in the blinding light of anger, you just can’t surrender to Santiago’s discipline so easily. 

“And you should’ve listened to me. But you didn’t. Nobody ever fucking listens to me and they end up dead because of it.” 

“Just because Redfly did, doesn’t mean everyone else will too.”

Low blow, Midge. 

Sensing immediate regret, you keep your eyes firmly pinned on your hands on the table in front of you. Like a dark rain cloud, you catch sight of his shadow engulfing your own. His stature and all-encompassing presence emerges behind you but you don’t dare move a single muscle. His hands curl around the back of the chair you’re sitting in, the pathetic plastic creaking under his fists. The brave front you’re putting on begins to yield to his growing temperament and the facade crumbles piece by piece. 

Everyone in the unit had heard of what happened when a certain team of the Delta Force went rogue. The US Army had never let them live it down since.

He leans his head over your stiff shoulder and you can even feel the heat of his anger just glazing over the shell of your ear. 

“Don’t. You. Fucking. Dare.” Santiago spits every word with heavy articulation as if he’s etching the words into your brain. His laboured breathing is a concern, knowing that it’s a warning of the wrath that’s about to ensue. “Redfly didn’t follow my orders to stand down and it inevitably got him killed. And right now, the same might happen to you.”

With a sharp, unexpectant tug of your hair, your head whips back, swinging the chair with you until the overhead light burns into your eyes. Reflexes have your hands gripping the edge of the table until they turn white with tension, stopping yourself from tipping backwards. The sudden blade on your neck stops you moving forward.

“Do you remember what I said to you before you disobeyed me?” 

You remember all too well. If you somehow survive this, I will kill you myself.

“You wouldn’t.” 

Santiago presses the blade harder against your skin, unapologetic. “Wouldn’t I?” 

You really don’t know whether to call his bluff but to stay on the safe side you remain silent. Until anything happens, you are both stuck staring into each other’s eyes, holding a resentment none of you are willing to let go of. Looking up at him, it’s obvious that he is teetering on the edge of breaking a few rules himself, allowing the sharp edge of the knife to roll across the expanse of your neck, bobbing as you swallow, until the sharp point rests precariously atop your pulse. But even he knows himself that he wouldn’t follow through with it, because as much as it pains him to admit it, your courageous actions, although downright stupid, did save Frankie’s life and secured the controls. And he fucking hates it. If there was anything he could do to scare the absolute shit out of you to stop you being so smug and defiant about it, he would do it in a heartbeat.

“Santiago,” you warn, just as the point of the knife starts to break through the thin layer of skin on your neck. You try to move your head but he still has his fist entangled through your roots. 

The instant the little whine of his name broke from your lips, something snapped inside him. The desperation of it, it was too provocative for him to ignore and an electrical feeling pulsed from his chest and shot straight towards his dick. Having you in his tight clutches, essentially at his mercy, exacerbated the feeling and suddenly he could feel himself growing hard. Fuck, what was he doing?

It’s perverse of him to want to hear it again, to see those plump but bitten lips of yours say his name again in a plea for his forgiveness. He becomes so fixated on the idea that he gets carried away, pricking your skin with the knife, watching as your eyes widen and your body writhing beneath him. 

“AHH! Pope--fuck--okay, okay, I’m sorry, alright? I’m sorry, just…please let go of the knife.” There it was again, the slight twitch in his dick, one that makes him grow uncomfortable beneath his boxers. 

It’s one thing for Pope to be angry, but when lust is thrown into the equation, there’s much less he can do to suppress it and with you still whimpering beneath him, it’s something he’s quickly realised. 

He relieves the pressure of the knife just enough to alleviate the pain but not enough that you haven’t completely escaped its threat. He moves out of your sight, his head dropping lower until his lips are gracing across your ear. You hear nothing but his slow breathing, funnelling down your ear and you instantly shiver. You want to pull away from him but for some reason, you’re chemically drawn into him; his close proximity, the smell of him, the hold he has on you, it’s all so…dangerously alluring. Something changes and the air starts to grow hot. 

“Y’know,” he purrs, “I can’t allow you stay on my team if you can’t listen to my orders--” 

“No! No, I-I want to stay.” 

“How do I know you won’t pull something stupid like this again, hm? You’re still a rookie, you’re not an addition to this team, no, what you are is a liability. Your actions today proved to me that you are just not capable.” 

“I am. I was promoted for a reason.” 

“Yeah? Prove it. Prove you’re capable and I might consider keeping you on my team.” 

“How?” 

“It’s simple,” he says, his lips trailing from your ear to skim across your cheek, just teasing with feather light touches. “Follow…my…orders. Do you understand?” 

Your cheeks are burning, your lungs are heaving, everything about this screams ‘this is a risk you shouldn’t take’. But it’s hard to heed those words when Santiago’s grip of your hair loossens to soothing scalp scratches, when the tips of his lips and his nose brush over your burning cheek, inhaling the scent of you, when your gut is telling you to listen to how tempted your body is, how wanting it is for him. 

Your thighs press together beneath the table. 

“Yes.” 

“Yes…what?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Better. Stand up.” You swing forward so fast that a violent rush of blood to your head almost makes you lose your balance, but Santiago keeps you up with a firm hold to your arm while he casually throws the knife onto the table. He perches himself in front of you to lean against the edge of the table, touching toe-to-toe and holds your gaze; bold, dark brown eyes that give nothing away about the inner workings of his mind. And it’s those same eyes that can read everything about you.

“Nervous, soldier?” 

“No, sir.” 

“Don’t lie.” 

“A…A little, sir.” 

“Good, you should be. Take off your top.” 

With those words, you know, that whatever happens from this moment on, Santiago will not be following any official protocol but his own. You do as he says, now feeling the heat of the room touching your bare skin. Santiago admires the way your belt hugs around your waist, waiting for the moment his hands can do the same when he’s fucking you from behind. Your bra is standard, nothing sexy. It’s what he expects on a day you had been on a mission, but what his eyes catch is your nipples pebbling through the material, and the slight blood stain discolouring the straps from the shrapnel wound to your shoulder that he didn’t realise you had. 

“At ease,” he commands. You act on instinct, bracing your hands behind your back with your legs standing shoulders-width apart. The instruction has been ingrained in you since the day you started your training. “You got hurt?”

“Minor wounds.” 

“Wounds you wouldn’t have had if you had listened to me.”

Fluttering warmth spreads from your core the moment Santiago cups your breast, your nipple weaving through his fingers and caught in a tight pinch. When you don’t react, he peers up at you to engage in a wordless conversation that both are in tune with. Keep going? Yes. He brings his other hand up to mirror the other and this time he finally elicits a small, but audible sigh from you. 

It’s been so long since you’ve had anyone like this, even longer for Santiago. His failures to locate his old contact Yovanna in Australia broke him and since then, he had sworn off getting close with anyone for fears of time repeating itself. As for you? You had yet to claim anyone as your own. Sure, you’ve had a few romances over the years but no one had ever satisfied you in the sick, slightly twisted way you were searching for. Up until now, you didn’t think there was a man out there who was interested in the same things you were. You didn’t think they existed.

Until you met Santiago. He is a thrill personified. 

It was impossibly cruel that the world had dealt you this hand; to fantasise over the ways his gravelly voice could murmur the dirtiest, filthiest things to you, the ways his experienced hands could ruin with the slightest of touches. However, you always knew that professionalism and the dangers of your line of work would always take priority over your fantasies, and you forced yourself out of your fictional world to come face to face with the harsh reality of war. It was a miracle how you were able to survive this long without going absolutely feral, but now, with Santiago losing his patience too, you’re starting to think that you won’t last much longer. 

“So fucking reckless,” he whispers, a reminder for both you and himself. His brow dips when his frustration rolls back in its tide, keeping that stone-cold expression hard on his face. It’s slightly different though. His parted lips, his vigorous movements, the slight pant to his breath. In your eyes, it all points towards desire more than frustration. “As your superior…” His voice is somehow quieter, but it’s heard all the same, “it’s my responsibility to punish you, to teach you a lesson about discipline. You need to learn that when I tell you to do something, you fucking do it. You understand?” 

A bead of sweat rolls down the back of your neck fluidly, your hands itching to wipe it away but obedience locks them behind your back. Suddenly, he snaps forward, his hand coming to snatch your jaw and force you to look him in the eyes. The precision of his quick movements makes you flinch, trapping a breath in your lungs and he notices, lips curling momentarily. 

“Yes, sir!”

Shivers follow wherever his other hand roams. He moulds out the shape of your waist and hips, squeezing tighter than your belt ever could. He begins to unbuckle your belt with little regard, popping the button of your trousers and bursting the zip to admire the way your trousers hang loosely from your hips. Everything inside you tenses at the sudden exposure.

Santiago begins toying with you, running his knuckles lightly over the edge of your underwear, dipping just the tip of his finger beneath the elastic rim, but retreats just as quickly. He follows the line of your navel, travelling up and up to trace small ghostly circles around your ribcage and it takes everything in you not to shudder. Your body can’t quite figure out how to tune into him, the stark contrast between the harsh grip he has on your jaw and the fluttering touches to your body has your mind going crazy and it’s mildly disorientating. 

His thumb circles around your chin before resting upon your bottom lip, pulling it out into a pout for his eyes to fixate on. He has that expression on his face that you’ve seen before; determined and fully resolute. The features of a man with authority. 

“That mouth…” he pants, “‘s gotten you into trouble today.” He draws you in until the tips of your noses clash and he’s a hair’s breadth away from kissing you. Instead…“I want to fuck it. Get on your knees, soldier.”

Your knees collide the cold surface of the ground almost instantly much to his pleasure. He wastes no time undoing his belt as efficiently as he did yours, and before too long the tip of his lengthy cock replaces where his thumb was just seconds before, wet with little beads of cum. Your hands reach out to guide him into your mouth but he snatches your wrist before you can commit. 

“Nuh-uh, this one’s for you. If you have some semblance of discipline, you’ll cum only when I say.”

You nod, falsely, and promptly take him into your mouth with one hand at the base of his cock while the other slips beneath your underwear and swirls around your clit the way you know best. A strangled groan leaves his throat and you feel the vibrations of it with the way his cock twitches in your mouth. The same pleasure buzzes in you, spreading warmth from your stomach down to your cunt. 

Despite having eventually found a rhythm that you can settle into, bobbing your head and taking as much of him as you can, you can’t find balance. Your multitasking skills have taken a hit because as soon as you feel the tight pinch of pleasure erupting from your clit, you know you can’t succumb to it and just like that, all your focus and effort turns to pleasuring him and the feeling dissipates. It’s torturous having to edge yourself, it’s not something you are particularly well-versed in. 

“So good, so fucking good,” he praises. Santiago’s hands come to scrape through your hair and take control, causing you to move faster and suck him down even harder, so much that you have to plant your other hand against his thigh to regain balance, going against his orders. He notices and chastises you. “Get that fucking hand back where it should be.” 

A moan gargles from your throat, a lack of patience wearing you thin. It doesn’t help that you’re incredibly turned on by the whole situation and you’re hesitant to touch yourself because of it, unsure how much more you can take before yet another one of Santi’s orders is disobeyed. So you take it slow, lazily circling around your bud just enough to keep you satiated while you occupy yourself with Santiago. Your mouth detaches from him with a pop, using those tear-stained eyes of yours to silently beg for his own release in exchange for your own but his head is thrown back and takes no notice, indulging in the way your tongue swirls around his tip. Just the sight of the vein popping from his neck is enough to send a rush of lust to mount up onto the orgasm that’s impatiently waiting. Fuck, you really need to cum. 

What gets his attention is your needy little whine. A whine that warns you both that you’re on the precipice of cumming, that if you pressed any harder on your sensitive clit you would combust. Your thighs are almost rattling beneath you.

“Don’t you dare,” he warns in a low growl, thrusting into your wet mouth and straight to the back of your throat. “Don’t you disobey me.” 

“I can’t hold on,” you splutter. 

“You can and you will. Fuuuck…” 

Decidedly, your hand comes to a halt because after all, this is about discipline, right? It’s all about being able to control yourself, to place your trust in him and listen to what he says hoping that it will all pay off. 

You need to do something that would push him over the edge, do something that would completely shatter his world, never to be forgotten. You offer every trick in the book; swirling around your tongue around the head of his cock, sweeping it across the small slit to collect the small bead of cum, teasing him before taking him down your throat and gagging on him. He’s already so close, and you're already dripping onto your hand, and with one last final trick up your sleeve, you catch his eyes, sink yourself onto him until your nose bashes against skin, and fight through the gag. Teeth baring, you slowly, lightly, graze your teeth up his cock, ghosting over every vein that pulses, leaving behind the soothing aftercare of your soft lips. By your side, his thighs twitch and by the time you reach the head of his cock, an explosion happens. 

Santiago leans forward, grappling onto your head as you drink down everything he gives you. His entire body tenses, trapping you into a headlock and just only for a couple of seconds do you feel yourself losing breath, but it doesn’t matter, because above you he’s panting heavily, enclosing his thighs around your head and holding onto you for dear life. It’s all the signs you need to know that you’ve done what you promised, you proved yourself. 

“Fucking hell,” Santiago pants. His grip loosens around you and you suck down a large breath as he releases you. The instant your lips are free, he forces you to a stand and claims them, humming into them with hunger. He slips his tongue past your lips searching for a taste of himself on you with a delectable moan. It only takes him a couple of seconds of clawing at your waist before his hand slips beneath your underwear to feel the result of your constant edging; a wet cunt that’s pleading for relief. The slightest touch of his fingers has your hips buckling, you’re so close it hurts. 

“So wet. So needy.”

“F-fuck, I’m gonna cum,” you whimper. You want it, you need it, you can’t live without it, for god sake, please!

“Yeah?” You could hear the smirk in his voice. “On whose authority?”

“Santiago, please.” 

“I told you this is about discipline and listening to orders--” his fingers drill into your clit with absolute precision and immediately takes control of your pleasure, luring it to the surface. “Did I say you could cum?” 

“No, but--” 

“Then you can’t. Have the discipline to stop it.” 

“Fuck!” Just seconds away from orgasm, you drop to a crouch, his hand slipping from you in one fluid movement. So close, so fucking close. 

Santiago maniacally chuckles above you. He has little sympathy for you hunched on the ground reeling into yourself, but what he does have though, is just a little pride. Pride that you listened, that you obeyed no matter how desperate you were to go against his word. Because, of course, in Santiago’s eyes, his word overrules everyone else’s. His word is gospel. What he says goes. 

You don’t get to relish the pride he has for you because you are spiralling. Your shaking body can’t allow you to stand knowing that even the slightest friction of anything against your clit would set you off and you’ve done so well to abide by his rules, you wouldn’t want to ruin it.

Santiago’s hand comes to stroke the back of your head in a supportive manner to find that you’re burning up. It’s obvious that you need release and that resides with him. 

“Stand up.”

“I…I don’t think I can.” 

“Come on,” he demands, his tone a little harsher. “Stand up and put your hands on the table.”

Shaky legs raise you to your feet and you brace yourself against the hard wooden table, the cold surface just a slight relief to the fire raging through your body. Santiago teases down your trousers leaving your panties to feel the brush of his hips against your ass, giving you a large hint of what’s to come. Your stomach plummets at the thought of having to hang onto the precipice for any longer. You could cry at the thought, tears ready and waiting behind your eyes. 

“Good girl,” he whispers seductively. “You’re so close, aren’t you? So desperate for release that just one--” he lightly brushes your clit through your underwear, “little--” he does it again and you judder, “touch will set you off.” 

Jesus, you could cry. You could cry and cry and cry, and beg for forgiveness, yield and submit yourself completely to him for the one second of pure bliss you’re starving for. He’s reduced you to nothing but a licentious and needy beggar you don’t recognise. 

“How much longer can you last?” He knows, but it pleases him to ask anyway. 

“I’ll break if you touch me.”

“Perfect.” 

Wicked hands and fast reflexes rip your drenched underwear from you and Santiago mercilessly drills his cock straight into you. The second you feel him fill you up, one hand comes to encircle your neck, closing off your oxygen while his fingers find your clit once again and with just a few devious laps around your clit, you explode. A blinding light flashes behind your eyes and your body becomes engulfed by a white-hot pain that ironically, freezes you to the spot. Santiago growls loudly behind you, feeling how your pussy clenches so tightly around him that he’s barely spared an inch to move, but his fingers don’t face the same challenge and are still effortlessly ruining you to the core. There’s a pathetic attempt from you to remove his hand but his persistence remains far superior. 

Santiago relieves the pressure on your throat to hear you sing for him. You’re thankful the walls are thick enough to contain your cries. 

The thing is, Santiago knew you were close, but what he didn’t anticipate was how close he was too, especially so soon after you sucked him dry. With how intensely your pussy milks him of everything he has, it takes less than a few forceful thrusts before he succumbs to his orgasm and collapses on top of you. It washes over him hard, electrocuting every nerve and filling every pore with sweat. Fuck, he thinks, haven’t felt this good in years. 

Warmth envelopes you both, eyes fluttering to a close with the liberating feeling of release. Santiago, having just a little more sanity than you do, still has enough energy to lazily work his hips back and forth, fucking you so slowly and deeply, you think it might just trigger another explosion. Alas, he spares you the burden and finally comes to rest against you. 

It feels like an eternity has passed by the time the heat dwindles and air returns to your lungs. During the quiet minutes that pass, euphoria eases into your muscles, massaging out the cramp and any discomfort of your desperate attempts to contain your orgasm. The soft, grounding kisses that Santiago leaves at the nape of your neck seem to have a similar effect and you hum contentedly. 

“I mean it, by the way,” Santiago mutters behind you, still brushing his lips against your skin. “You really could’ve gotten yourself killed today.” His fingers trace down your shoulder, gently running across the bandage that covers your shrapnel wounds to reinforce his point. 

You sigh. “I know.” 

You feel him leave you, alleviating his weight and dressing himself. “Look at me.” 

You’re just about able to turn yourself around, and with Santiago’s help, he dresses you too. Once decent, the very hands that ruined you come to clamp against your cheeks, far too delicate for what you had known them to be. “What you did today was out of line—” 

This again. “But Frankie--” 

“Frankie is a different story. His mission to infiltrate the barn and receive the controls meant that the chances of him dying was a lot higher than ours. And even though it’s a fucking bastard of a pill to swallow, it’s just one of those things that we all have to come to terms with. I went into this mission already prepared to accept the possibility of his death should anything go wrong. Yours I wasn’t willing to accept.” 

“But I didn’t die.” 

“You’re not getting it.” His words are spat through gritted teeth and something in you sinks at the disappointment. The only thing that seems to calm him down is the sensation of your forehead against his, proof that you are alive. “Frankie’s death would’ve hurt, yes, but like I said, I would’ve seen it coming. If you expect disappointment, you won’t get disappointed. But when you threw yourself into the firing line like that, you started playing a game of Russian Roulette. Neither of us knew whether you were going to live or die and I panicked. I was so scared, terrified even at the thought of losing you because I knew I would never be able to recover from it. Your death, your untimely, unprecedented death under my watch would’ve haunted me for the rest of my life. That’s the difference between you and Frankie. That’s the lesson you need to learn from this.” 

Your eyebrows crunch together, feeling stupid for not coming to the realisation sooner. You feel embarrassed to admit that you had never thought of it like that. 

A long silence fills the room because you’re not too sure how to put the feeling of heavy regret into words, none of them justifiable enough to convey even a hint of the remorse that you feel inside. The fact that you refuse to look Santiago in the eyes is proof enough to him that you’re aware of the mistake you made, and instead of looking for a response, he settles for your silence and simply brushes his thumb across the highs of your cheek.

“Just promise me you won’t do it again, no matter how immoral it seems, no matter whose life is at stake, please, if at all possible, keep yourself safe.” 

“I promise.” 

He brings his lips to yours, melting them together in a kiss as though it is his last. “Good,” he smiles lightly, sealing the lesson with a kiss to your forehead. “I…I might’ve gotten carried away trying to get that message to sink in.” 

For the first time in a while, you smile. “It’s okay. I’ve definitely learned my lesson not to piss you off.” 

“Hmm, keep your promise and stay alive long enough and you’ll find out what the reward is.” 

[wardenparker]

Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas

Frankie Morales x female reader Co-written with @absurdthirst

Rating: Explicit for family dysfunction. This blog is always 18+ Word Count: 10.7k Warnings: Post partum depression, marriage trouble, mentions of addiction, demanding family, abusive parents, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, dysfunctional family, a very sweet baby who has done nothing wrong ever, parents abusing their adult children in front of others. (There is a happy-ish ending, I promise.) Summary: It's only been a few months since Frankie came home from South America, and both of your families are bearing down on you for the holidays. A rocky marriage and even rockier relationships with your parents are bound to make for a very tense Christmas. Notes: Sorry it's not light and fluffy this year, gang. It just hasn't been a light and fluffy time. Considering how dramatic this holiday season has been, this little slice of family trauma seemed pretty appropriate.

Christmas. The time of year that is supposed to merry and bright. Well, the bright is accurate, especially in south Florida. Not a dusting of snow to be had, the palm trees in the front yard decorated with lights and the temperatures still letting everyone wear shorts and t-shirts if they wanted. It’s definitely not the white Christmas you had grown up with, but Frankie prefers this over freezing his ass off while shoveling snow off the driveway just to go to the store to get diapers.

The magic rubs off over the years. From childhood we outgrow the sparkle of the Christmas season as we stop thinking of it as magical, and now it's just another set of expectations that inevitably seems impossible to meet.

Both sides of your family had expected you and Frankie to host this year. Because of the baby, they said. Because now that you had a real family, it was time for you to take on the responsibility of holiday hosting. It's frustrating enough to be a first time mother of an eight month old. It's sleepless and difficult and Frankie has only barely gone back to work so money has been tighter than tight.

“Why don’t we just tell them that we can’t?” Frankie leans back from the sink where he’s finally shaving to look at you perched in the bed. You are tired and he knows that despite what you’ve said, hosting Christmas is the last fucking thing you need. “We have the baby. It’s a lot.”

"Because Christmas is next week, Francisco," you remind him. The baby monitor is on your nightstand, and you fiddle with it, but it's mostly a nervous habit. Mirabel wasn't a good sleeper for the first few months and you're constantly worried that she'll start having trouble again. "And they're coming here because of her. It was a miracle they didn't all fly down to cram into the delivery room when she was born, it seems mean to say they can't see her at Christmas."

“One— I wouldn’t have let them in the delivery room.” That memory was for him alone, he has absolutely loved being the first to hold his daughter. To be there to help and watch as you pushed his child into the world. “Two, shouldn’t that mean that they want to save you the stress of hosting?” He asks, leaning back in and putting the razor back to his cheek. “Hell, I say we order Chinese and be done with it.”

"I would agree." Stretching out in bed helps a lot. You've been dealing with a little hip pain lately that gets exasperated by carrying Mirabel around and you make sure to do stretches every morning and night – at least for a few minutes. "But we're in it now. Flights are booked. Meals have to be planned."

“I’ve got to mow the grass tomorrow.” He knows you will remind him of it so he goes ahead and checks it off your mental list. “And you need more mushrooms, right?” He makes a face in the mirror, hating mushrooms but you don’t seem to have picked up on that.

"Beef Wellington on Christmas is a family tradition." Your mother made it ever year from the recipe that her mother-in-law taught her, and now you make it every year for you and Frankie and however many of your friends you end up having over to dinner on the holiday. Usually it's the Miller brothers, this year might include Pope as well.

It’s good that he’s in a different room than you are so you don’t see the face that he makes. He hates the Beef Wellington, he’s just never been able to admit that. When you were dating, you could have served him a boiled shoe and he would have praised it. It was better than an MRE or the shit they served in the chow hall most days on base. And Frankie’s idea of cooking was either firing up a grill or going out to eat, so home cooked whatever was good to him. Especially when he knew he was getting laid after dinner. Now he’s stuck eating mushrooms every damn Christmas and it sucks. “I know.” He sighs, turning on the water to rinse the hair out of his razor. “I changed the sheets in the guest rooms.” He tells you. “And made sure your mom has the ‘good pillows’.” He rolls his eyes, again, happy you can’t see him because you would definitely scold him for that.

“Thank you, honey.” You know damn well he thinks it’s ridiculous and probably had a running monologue going why he made the guest beds about how picky your families are, but his parents are just as bad as yours in different ways. That’s why this holiday is going to be so fucking stressful. Part of why you work so hard to make family visits perfect is because his mother has never approved of you. “We’ll make sure everything is perfect. It will all be fine.”

Frankie hums as he finishes shaving and wipes his jaw dry. It’s a little jarring to see the smooth skin, he’s sported a patchy beard since getting out, but he’d decided that one thing he needed to do was look better after getting his pilot’s license back. He steps out of the bathroom and grins at you. “Hey baby.”

“Hey.” You say it before you look up, and when you lift your eyes you do a double take. “Clean shaven, huh? It’s been a while.”

He shrugs slightly, reaching up and rubbing his cheek lightly. “Figured your mom would complain less if I was clean shaven.” He had even gotten a haircut, not nearly as short as when he was active duty, but trimmed from the longer curls he had recently been sporting.

“Mira’s going to spend half of tomorrow poking at your face,” you predict, smiling softly. It will be the first time your daughter has ever seen him clean shaven.

He snorts. “As long as she doesn’t cry.” He slides his eyes along your body, not caring that you are in a comfy t-shirt and short, you look sexy to him. “So what are my chances of getting lucky tonight?” He asks, lifting a brow.

“Are you suddenly into somnophilia?” It proves your point that you can barely stifle a yawn. Getting up multiple times a night to pee or see what Mirabel needs takes its toll on your rest, and god knows you never ever get to sleep in anymore. Sure, you knew being a mother was going to be exhausting, but this is above and beyond that.

His playful grin slips and he shakes his head. “No baby, not if you’re too tired to enjoy yourself.” He doesn’t sigh, but he does miss the intimacy, the closeness of sex. Instead of complaining, he reaches back into the bathroom to flip off the light and starts walking towards the bedroom door. He will check the doors and downstairs windows one last time before setting the alarm, a habit of his. “You need some water or something downstairs?”

"No, I'm okay." It's not that you don't want him. He's still the same gorgeous man you married and conceived your daughter with. It isn't a matter of want. It's a matter of being so exhausted and feeling so disgusting from never having time to thoroughly shower and always ending up sweaty and sticky somehow. You don't feel like yourself, and you haven't since your second trimester.

But unloading all of that on Frankie doesn't seem fair when he's finally getting back on his feet with work and therapy and kicking his drug habit. The man doesn't even drink anymore, because he doesn't want to slip up again. So you keep your mouth shut and don't bitch about your own discomfort.

He sighs softly as he goes downstairs. Another night where he’s turned down, but he understands. You’ve been dealing with some postpartum issues and he doesn’t want to push. He just wants to make love to his wife more than once a month. It’s another reason why he had thought hosting Christmas would be a bad idea. You are already worn down and frazzled, despite Frankie sharing the load of the house and baby with you as much as he possibly could. This is just going to add more stress to your already loaded down shoulders and he doesn’t like it at all.

You turn over and slip under the covers when he goes downstairs to check the alarms. Being overwhelmed and depressed has you feeling like you're out drowning in the middle of the ocean and have suddenly forgotten how to swim. The best thing you can do right now is try to sleep.

Frankie comes back upstairs, slipping into the bed and curling around you. He hates that instead of curling against him, you huddle against your side of the bed. Wondering if you are secretly still pissed at him for the entire Coke thing. “I love you.” He whispers before he closes his eyes.

You love him, too. You do. And you have this whole time. It's just so hard to pull yourself out of the bottom of the ocean of your depression and uncertainty that you just pretend to be asleep and hope that you both knock out quickly.

Maybe tomorrow will be better. Probably not, but maybe. After all, it can't be worse.

******

“It’s okaaaaaaay.” Frankie bounces his very upset little girl on his hip and shoves a finger in her mouth. She’s teething and of course woke up in a horrible mood. She hiccups and he grabs the teething ring to throw it back in the freezer for a little bit. “It’s okay, baby girl. I know it hurts. Believe me, it doesn’t get better when you have a cavity either.”

"But she'll have good dental hygiene and never have a cavity in her whole life." You call from the kitchen, working your ass off to make sure that each and every bit of Christmas dinner is accounted for perfectly. Frankie isn't the world's best cook by any means, but this family tradition is ingrained in your bones -- beef Wellington, scalloped potatoes, green beans with almonds, and a demi-glace gravy to make everything even richer and fancier. It's a far cry from what you normally eat but that is sort of the point. It's the holidays. This is the time to be fancy.

He snorts. “Not if she gets her teeth from my side.” He calls back. “I’m ninety percent fillings at this point.” That makes her giggle and he grins at her. “Was daddy funny?” He walks her back into the kitchen to find you frantically stirring something. “I’ve got the living room vacuumed and the egg nog is in the garage fridge.”

"Have you heard from your parents yet?" Your in-laws are always early, which is not exactly a sin but it is inconvenient. If they say they'll be somewhere at 7 then they are always there by 6:30, wondering where on earth you've been for the last half hour.

“Not yet.” He loves his mom, he really does, but he’s not blind to her persnickety nature. He’s talked to her about it but it seems like she doesn’t bother you. A wonderful thing considering she’s run off more than one girlfriend of his over the years. “You know her, she’s gonna show up when she wants to. At the most inconvenient damn time.”

“I just want to have dinner in the oven when they get here.” The Christmas after Frankie proposed, your own parents had hosted everyone and Vanessa Morales had been less than impressed when your mother was still getting things into the oven when they arrived. It apparently didn’t matter in the least that they were early.

“Roger.” He kind of treats the parents visiting like a mission, a hostile one.

“Where did the Millers end up this year?” You can’t tell if it’s better or worse to not have his friends here as a conversational buffer. Part of you is grateful for fewer people in the house and half wishes you had friends here to lean on.

“I think Will and Teresa are going to get back together.” Frankie admits. “He said him and Benny were going to have Christmas with her and her brothers.” Frankie had always liked Will’s ex-fiancée and he knew you did as well.

“Good.” That’s a relief, showcased with how easily your shoulders drop with just a touch of tension dropped. “Good. That’s…That will be really good for them. I know they’ve missed each other.”

“They have.” Frankie pauses for a second . “Ben said he was going to swing by and check on Molly and the girls.” He murmurs quietly, regret lacing his tone.

“Where is Pope spending Christmas?” It’s not necessary to express more regret over Redfly’s death. Every single one of you have shed your tears over it and you make sure to check in with Molly at least once a week just like you always have. Family that you choose means you choose each other over and over again.

“He’s still in Australia.” Frankie sighs softly. Yovanna has covered her tracks well and he’s still looking for the woman he had fallen in love with.

"Shit..." All you can really do is shake your head at that. Even if Santiago Garcia is on your shit list for inducing the entire team away to South America for weeks, what happened there wasn't really his fault. It sounds like everything that could go wrong did, and the best that you can do is be grateful that Frankie came home to you in one peace.

“Yeah.” He shuffles slightly, rocking the baby as she continues to gnaw on her first and drool all over his shirt. He knows you aren’t happy with what happened, and he’s never been able to tell you all the details.

The tentative expression on his face makes you shake your head, and you turn back to the pan you have on the stove with a sigh. "You'll tell me when you're ready." It's been months and he's still keeping the whole story from you, but you have always been patient. You have always let Frankie come to you. "Let's just not do it on Christmas Eve. Our families are almost here."

“Okay.” He knows you are upset that he won’t talk to you, but he steps closer and leans down to kiss your shoulder. “Thank you for understanding.”

He'll come to you when he's ready. And you're doing your damnedest to be patient. But it's fucking hard when you feel like you're weathering a private storm on the edge of an ocean hell bent on drowning you.

For better or for worse, that is the moment that the doorbell rings.

“It’s showtime.” Frankie mutters, trying to plaster a happy smile on his face and just managing to look constipated.

"Shit, shit." You shove two trays into the oven right away, barely able to check to make sure that everything is assembled correctly but just dying to have it all in the oven. "Okay. That's got to be your parents." Frankie has walked away with the baby, leaving you to quickly wipe down the kitchen and pray you're not smelly from the sweat you worked up preparing dinner.

Frankie opens the door, smiling when he sees his mother and stepfather standing on the porch. “You made it.” He greets them. “Made good time getting here.”

“Of course we did.” Vanessa Morales moved into the house with determination, but the first thing she does is reach for her granddaughter. “Ay, hola Gordita! Eres mucho más bonita que tus fotos.”

Suddenly feeling shy, she pulls back and buries her face in Frankie’s neck. “Está bien, es tu abuela.” He soothes, rubbing her little back. “She’s cutting another tooth.” He explains.

“Pobrecita.” Vanessa coos, not taking the baby’s cue at all. “Come give your abuela a kiss, Gordita. Dame un beso.”

Mira doesn’t like it when someone crowds her face that she’s not familiar with and she immediately starts to cry, clinging to Frankie and trying to get away from her. “Mama.” He huffs, holding her tighter and cooing softly. “Give her a few minutes to warm up to you.”

Vanessa frowns, but relents when her husband agrees with Frankie. Instead, all she says as she’s lead into the house is, “Your sister’s bebes didn’t need time to warm up.”

“Gabriella lives in the same town as you, mama.” He reminds her, rolling his eyes at her miffed reaction. “Mira has seen you twice since she was born.”

“Even so.” His mother huffs, as though it were a personal affront.

“Feliz Navidad, Vanessa.” You come out of the kitchen a second later with your face freshly washed just to give yourself a boost and offer your in-laws a smile. “Hi, Javier. It’s nice to see you both.”

“There’s my favorite daughter-in-law.” Javier might just be a step-parent, but he has always thought that Francisco had chosen the best woman for him, despite what his wife might say. Vanessa is prickly, and while he might find that attractive since he’s a self-confessed asshole, he tries to make you feel accepted when he’s around. He steps around Vanessa to pull you in for a hug.

“Feliz Navidad, Javi.” The extra moment of consideration from your husband’s stepfather is dearly appreciated, and you accept the hug whole-heartedly. “How’s things?”

“Same.” He doesn’t mind slightly offending Frankie, so he kisses your y forehead and leans back to wink at you. He was a ladies man back in the day and still a silver fox, so it’s always fun to raise the hackles of the man he loves like his own son. Just for shits and giggles. “Better now that I’m around three beautiful ladies.” He turns that charming smile on Mira and leans in. “This one most of all.”

He earns a full belly laugh from his granddaughter and you feel yourself breathe just a little easier. Javier in a good mood bodes well for the night. “Can I offer you both something to drink? Vanessa?”

“I don’t suppose you have wine,” Vanessa manages to make it sound vile, to not have wine in the house. “Actually, mom, she picked up a bottle of your favorite sangria.” Frankie pipes up.

“Let me get you a glass.” The atmosphere is already frigid but that’s just how it’s always been between the two of you. Thank God she doesn’t know about the coke or she’d surely find a way to blame you for Frankie’s addiction issues, too. Just like she’s blamed you for everything else she deems wrong with her only son’s life.

“Javi?” Frankie lifts a brow towards his stepfather. “You want a whiskey? I’ve got a bottle in the den.”

“Good man.” Javi commends, and clasps his stepson on the back as they disappear into the other room together.

Vanessa turns towards you expectantly and pulls a tight smile. “When will dinner be ready?” She asks. “Assuming you’ve started cooking, of course.”

It’s too much for how exhausted you are, and even being prepared doesn’t make it okay. Without a buffer, Vanessa aims all of her venom at you endlessly. “It will be ready in an hour. No need to worry.” And the sooner your own parents get here the better — not that they’re perfect by any means.

“You look tired.” It’s not an observation born out of concern, but criticism. “You should really put a bit of effort in.” She hums. “Fransisco deserves that, doesn’t he?”

Yes. He does. But your husband of six years is also well aware of how much work raising a newborn is. Which is why you just smile and bite back how much his mother's constant nitpicking bothers you. "Your son prefers a natural look," you inform her as politely as you can without snapping. "No make up. So that I always look like myself."

She can’t possibly argue with that, because it would mean insulting her precious baby boy. Instead she just looks around like she’s never seen the place and starts to wander off towards the kitchen.

You’re debating whether or not you need to follow her when the doorbell rings. It’s still a touch too early for your parents to arrive — they shared their location with you so you could track their driving route on your phone from the airport. It should be ten more minutes until they arrive.

“I’ll get it!” You call, wondering if Frankie heard the doorbell in the den, and head back to the front.

“That must be her parents.” Frankie sighs and looks longingly at the bottle of whiskey but he knows he can’t have any. It wouldn’t be fair to you or to Mira.

“Save it for later.” Javi advises. “When your mama’s gone to bed and the baby is down, and you can relax with your wife.” It seems like Frankie is struggling more than he has let on, but there isn’t time to talk about that now. “Go say hi to your in-laws. I can take Mira if she’s okay with it.”

Surprisingly, it doesn’t take much convincing on either man’s part for Mira to go to her abuelo. Immediately little fingers dig into the hair covering his upper lip and Frankie chuckles. “She doesn’t understand why I don’t have facial hair today.” He explains.

“She can play all she wants.” Javi laughs, bouncing the little girl in his arms. “I got her, Frankie. Go on.”

It’s almost jarring to the aloof and broody man he had spent his teenage years around laughing and chortling at a baby, but Frankie smiles at the sight before turning to see about mitigating the next disastrous arrival.

You’re already at the door, half-smiling and half-bewildered as your parents hand off a bag full of wrapped presents to you like a butler and chatter away as they enter.

“It’s good to see you dear.” Your mother hums, “our trip here seemed to take forever.” She opens her mouth to once again suggest that you move back home and Frankie comes in to greet them.

“It isn’t exactly a short flight.” You can acknowledge that, and it’s why your parents don’t visit more often. Your dad isn’t up to that much traveling anymore. “I’m glad we’re able to spend Christmas with you.”

“So are we.” The problem in Frankie’s eyes about his in-laws spending Christmas with you is that they treat the house like a hotel and you like staff for the visit. They don’t Think they should lift a finger for themselves. “Hey, glad you made it.” He gives them a polite smile and nods at your father before holding out his hand to shake it.

“Francisco.” Even after a decade together, your father still refuses to call your husband by his nickname. He shakes Frankie’s hand with unnecessary force, like usual, and grunts with approval. “How’s things?”

“Going well, sir.” Despite the difficulties raising a child, he knows voicing that to your parents would do neither of you any good. “And you?”

“Retirement is boring.” Your father gripes good-naturedly. “Thinking about finding something part tune just to get out of the house and avoid the nagging at home.”

Frankie snorts. “Yeah I could see how that would be a little overwhelming for you.”

"Never stop working, if you can help it." The older man claps Frankie on the shoulder like he's doling out the sagest advice in the world. "She'll be fine with the baby. But the second you're home for more than twenty minutes an extra day? You'll have a Honey Do list longer than your arm."

Frankie doesn’t mind spending time with his daughter and cleaning up around the house that is also his responsibility but he just hums. “That’s some advice.” He makes it sound like he agrees just to keep the peace. You need help with things and his father-in-law’s outlook is a little old fashioned for him.

“You’ll thank me for it,” your father advises, and gives Frankie another friendly-if-condescending pat on the arm before walking away in search of whatever it is he wants but hasn’t asked for yet. Presumably to find his wife, but that’s an assumption.

“Jesus.” Frankie sighs and turns to start taking jackets and bags from you. “I’ll get their bags to their room.” He grins. “Do I get a tip?”

“Does a kiss count?” Just because you’re both exhausted and you haven’t been in the mood for sex doesn’t mean you don’t love your husband or appreciate the things he does to help you.

“The best kind of tip.” He vows, leaning in and stealing a quick kiss before pulling away. You seem to shy away from physical displays when your parents are around. “I’ll be right back.”

“Thank you, honey.” Having him jump on board to help means everything, but you frown a second later. “Where’s the baby? I thought I put her playpen away.”

“She’s with Javier.” He smirks slightly. “Old man apparently still has it with the ladies.”

"Well, that's something, at least." Something that his mother is going to hate – that the baby hid from her and went straight to her abuelo instead. "I'm going to pour drinks for people and get the shrimp cocktail out of the fridge so everybody can focus on food instead of bickering."

“I’ll be there as quickly as I can dump these in their room.” He promises, you having already determined which room your parents are staying in.

But as fast as Frankie can move in spite of his bad back, it isn’t fast enough. By the time you walk into the kitchen you find all four of your collective parents staring at each other like it’s a stand off at the O.K. Corral.

“How about a little appetizer?” You ask, after a few seconds of trying to read the room and finding the stony silence completely impenetrable. The only thing you care about is keeping them reasonably civil and having your little girl back in your arms. “Thanks for hanging on to her, Javier.” You offer him a smile when you take her back.

“Oh that’s no problem at all.” Mira giggles at him and leans in to cuddle against his chest, making him smile proudly. “Nothing I wouldn’t do for this little beauty.”

“You wanna stay with abuelo, sweetheart? You go right ahead.” It leaves your hands free, and you’re grateful to have that for a few more moments. So instead of extracting your baby girl from her grandparent, you kiss her curls and cross to the refrigerator to retrieve the tray of shrimp cocktail you put together this morning. “Can I get anyone a drink? Or a refill?”

“Since we are already starting with the alcohol, I would like some wine.” Your mother eyes the glass of whatever is in Vanessa’s hand and tuts slightly. “White of course, red wines are too heavy for me.”

This is what holidays are. What family gatherings are. What they always are and why you dread them so much. Conversation can never seem to be civil, no one ever offers to help. Frankie is always putting out proverbial fires with all four parents while you work to be the perfect hostess but it’s never even enough to keep the peace. Everyone leaves feeling worse than when they came and yet they still insist on seeing the two of you. It’s enough to make you want to flee the scene, but you would never give your mother-in-law the satisfaction of seeing you run scared. It would only cement her low opinion of you.

So you pour drinks and serve appetizers, plastering the smile on your face and eventually taking Mirabel back from Javier just for utter relief of having your daughter back in your arms. By the time Frankie comes back downstairs, the doorbell rings again. Oh god, is all you can think, because you’re not expecting anyone else. What fresh hell is this?

Frankie frowns slightly, exchanging a confused look with you. “I’ll get it.” He promises, slightly caught off guard and wary by the unexpected arrival of someone else. Not that a fucking drug cartel would ring the doorbell. A firebomb through the window would be more their style.

The impatient chimes ring twice more before Frankie makes it across the house, not because it takes long but because of the insistent person on the other side. If your mother wasn’t already inside you would have guessed it was her without hesitation.

“Coming!” The friendly tone that Frankie adopts does stop him from reaching into the entry way dresser and pulling out the snub nosed .38 he keeps in there for just this occasion. He tucks it into the back of his pants before opening the door to find that it’s not necessary. “Benny!”

“Hey man.” Benny is grinning from ear to ear when he leans in the doorway to embrace his friend, slapping Frankie on the back in the process. “Sorry to drop in, but did you get Pope’s text?”

“Haven’t had time to look at my phone.” He hugs Ben Miller back just as hard as the bastard tries to squeeze him after the back slapping. “Everything okay?” He asks that quietly, since you have company and you don’t know about what happened in South America.

“Yeah.” Benny nods like a bobble head, immediately ready to reassure his friend. His brother. “He’s back. Brought Yovanna with him. He was texting around for a ride and a place to crash.”

“Holy shit, he found her.” He had his private doubts about tracking the lover he had sent to Australia down, but he’s happy for Pope. “And you decided to play Uber.”

Benny grins, wide and unapologetic, before standing aside with a flourish. “Special delivery!”

The shorter man grins but he doesn’t rush to embrace Frankie. A little unsure of how he will be greeted, but Frankie bursts out laughing “Cabron!” He huffs, lunging forward and wrapping his arms around his brother in arms.

“Feo.” Pope returns the hug easily, not caring that he holds his best friend a moment longer these days than he might have before. Shit’s changed, after all. “You remember Yovanna?” He knows that everything about that trip is burned into Frankie’s brain just like the other guys, but it seems the polite way to go about reintroducing them.

She seems nervous, hesitant. He knows that Pope had to have told her what happened to Tom. "Sure." He nods and flashes her a smile before he moves out of the doorway. "Come in. Please."

"Lotta cars here..." Pope observes, though 'a lot' is only two besides the cars that are supposed to be here.

"We'll see you guys tomorrow." Benny waves as he jogs back to his truck. Everybody is with family today and that includes him, because Will is the only member of this damn group that can cook worth a damn somewhere other than a grill.

“Thanks Ben!” He knows that Mira can sleep in the bassinet in your bedroom and he can pull down the Murphy Bed you both had decided to keep in there for those late, rough nights with the baby. “Take your shit up to the bedroom next to mine.” He tells him with a smirk. “I’ll let my mother know you are here.”

"Nessa's here?" Pope brightens measurably as he whisks Yovanna into the house. "Christmas with the fam, man. I'm telling you. This is going to be great."

He snorts as he closes the door. Hopefully this won’t make you feel even more overwhelmed than you already have been.

"Frankie!" You call from the kitchen, and he can hear shuffling chairs and footsteps. "Who is it, honey?"

“Well, uh—”

“Hoooooooney, I’m hooooome.” In typical, dramatic fashion, Pope swoops into the room with a broad grin, although he’s not directing it at you since you might actually hit him for that shit earlier this year. Instead, he aims that charm at Vanessa. “I heard the most beautiful lady this side of the border was here and I had to come.”

"Aye, Santiago mijo!" After a lifetime of being best friends with her only son, Vanessa looked at Santiago Garcia as being the baby boy she never had. She disregards everything else in the room to go and hug him, but for a single moment you're actually grateful for that. It gives you the time you need to catch your breath after your heart stops at the sight of your husband's best friend. The one who supposedly was still in Australia.

“There she is!” Pope shoots you a quick glance and an even quicker wink before he is folding Frankie’s mom into a tight hug. He knows that you and your mother-in-law don’t get along, and hopefully you won’t kick him out on his ass in exchange for distracting her from harassing you.

Immediately, Vanessa is fawning over Santi instead of picking on the fact that you haven’t dressed your baby girl specifically in pink. It’s so much of a relief to see him alive and well in your kitchen that you barely register anything else — and it takes you a second before you register the gorgeous woman standing anxiously in the doorway. Mira tucks her little face against your shoulder at the sight of a stranger, but you just at your daughter’s back and gently step closer. “You must be Yovanna?”

"Sí, I mean, yes." She knows that you and Frankie speak Spanish, but she also knows that she's in the United States, so practicing speaking English is necessary. Her eyes flicker between you and Frankie before she nods. "You must be the wife that is the best thing that ever happened to Francisco." After Pope had found her again, he had started telling her everything that he couldn't before. The flight from Australia filled with stories and names. "You're not Molly, right?" She asks, embarrassed that your name isn't quite coming to her. "That was the rude one's wife."

You tell her your name and disregard the comment about Tom because it’s accurate. You and Redfly never got along but you do try to respect the dead, so you won’t badmouth him now. “We’ll introduce you to Molly tomorrow, if you and Santi are going to be around. We always do a post-holiday thing with the team.”

"I think we are going to find a house?" She admits, shrugging slightly because she doesn't really mind where she is. As long as her brother is safe and she gets to be with Santiago. "That is what he was talking about."

“I’m glad to hear it.” To have him nearby and settled will do wonders for Frankie. He’s missed Pope and missed having his lifelong best friend close at hand. As much as you love each other and as much as you will always work to keep each other supported and happy, there is a part of him that isn’t quite full or right without Pope around. It’s the same way you feel about your own best friend. “Well, um…” Taking a second to grin at your bashful daughter, you turn slightly so the baby can see Yovanna over your shoulder. “This is Mirabel. She’s princess of the palace, and just…welcome. Merry Christmas. Dinner is in the oven and there’s plenty to drink.”

"I am sorry for intruding." She offers, smiling at the baby. "I hope it is not too much?"

“The team is family.” And sometimes family can be exhausting. Sometimes family can be troublesome. But family means doing the work. Which is exactly why you didn’t tell your parents to get stuffed over hosting this Christmas even though you’re exhausted and overwhelmed. “At the holidays, family is always welcome,” you tell her with certainty.

"He did not know how you would accept him." She admits softly, happy that he had been wrong about you being put off by him bringing your husband into the mess he had. "But it is good you have not had any problems since Lorea was killed."

“We haven’t,” you assure her quietly. “It’s the secret that we keep to make sure the boys are safe, and thankfully we have been safe.” For Santi? You can only shake your head and shrug while you bounce Mira in your arms. “I’ve over being upset with him, though it did take a while. Now? I’m just glad you’re both safe. That my husband came home to me. And that he won’t be doing anything like that ever again.”

“I understand.” She agrees. “It was stupid for them, for me. But at least they are home safe now.”

“Our families don’t know anything about it,” you tell her, not admitting for the moment that all you know is the name Lorea and that people had died. Two facts which Frankie had only told you so you could gauge your own safety if you were ever approached by someone who claimed to know him or know about what happened on that mission. You hadn’t asked more and he hadn’t offered, and since you had still been upset with him for going at all, it had never been brought up again.

Yovanna tilts her head in curiosity but she doesn’t comment on it. It’s very obvious that you don’t know the details and she doesn’t think that it’s her place to tell you about it. “Is there anything I can do to help?” She asks. “Since we are showing up unannounced.”

“Get settled and help yourself to a drink or an appetizer,” you offer, motioning to the small table on the other side of the kitchen counter. It’s where you and Frankie usually eat, especially with it being easy for placing Mira’s high chair, but tonight dinner will be served in the formal dining room. Which makes the little kitchen table a perfect apps-and-drinks table. “Welcome.” There will be plenty to talk about. More than plenty. But right now you refocus your attention. It’s time to give Mira a bottle and set her down for a nap, which will hopefully mean that she sleeps through the setting of the table and even the eating of dinner.

Everyone has been chatting, or at least Santiago has been distracting his mother while your father and Javi chat amiably. Your mother is fusing with something, one of the sides you had already prepared. Tasting it and adding something to it. He wants to stop her, but then he will just be told he doesn’t know what he’s doing in the kitchen, so he decides to not fight that battle today.

"I'm going to feed Mira," you tell Frankie as you slip past him in the kitchen. It will be a much-needed moment of relative quiet and you aren't going to pass it up. "I'll just go upstairs so I can feed her and put her down without fussing with a bottle. Is that okay?"

“You do that, babe.” He reaches out and squeezes your shoulder supportively. “I’ll try to keep everyone from killing each other.” It’s a large task, but hopefully he will be able to do it.

"Santi can help." It's not a suggestion that will take much pressing. Your quiet, introspective husband's best friend is a magnet for attention even without trying. "I'll be back down in a little bit. If you need me sooner, I have my phone on me. Just send an SOS text."

"I won't need it." He promises foolishly, unaware that the mothers will start in on him individually just as soon as he walks back into the kitchen.

"Good luck," you hum under your breath, before whisking your daughter off up the stairs.

"Francisco, be a dear and run this upstairs." Your mother's purse, one that she had earlier insisted that she needed to keep on her, now needs to be put in her room. She waggles the bag at him impatiently when he doesn't immediately jump to take it.

"She can do that, can't she?" Vanessa looks around, not even using your name to refer to you, and frowns after a moment. "Where did she go, Frankie? She should be taking care of her guests."

"She's feeding Mira, mama." He explains. "You remember what it's like to have a hungry, tired baby." He frowns slightly at her and takes the purse. "I'll take it upstairs, it's not a problem."

"So she took her away to feed her?" Vanessa clutches the pearls she isn't wearing. "One of us could have easily given her a bottle! She's teaching our granddaughter to hate us right away. Pobrecita Mirabel."

"She's breastfeeding." He huffs out. "Plus, she's putting her to bed."

"We're mothers too." To Frankie's surprise, your own mother chimes in, in support of Vanessa's viewpoint. "We can give a bottle just as easily as anyone else."

The look that your father shoots Frankie is apologetic at best but he says nothing, only drinks from his glass and turns to say something to Santiago, whom he vaguely remembers from your wedding. It's just about the least helpful atmosphere in the world but at least he isn't adding to the fire.

He shakes his head and doesn’t point out the glaringly obvious fact that if you are sticking your boob in his daughter’s mouth, then they couldn’t just as easily fed her, but it’s not worth the argument. Instead he turns around and hustles upstairs to deposit the bag at the foot of their guest bedroom.

It isn't exactly an ideal day. For anyone, it seems. But the only way out is through so he heads right back downstairs again once that is taken care of. When he comes back to the kitchen it's your father at the stove that catches his eye this time, but again Frankie doesn't say anything on that point. There's no use rocking the boat. Not now that his stepfather has most of the room entertained with a work story and no one is complaining at the moment.

"Oh damn." Your mother huffs, waggling the bottle. " We are out of wine." She raises her eyebrows at Frankie. "Will you be a dear and get another?"

"Is there another?" His mother asks, as if it was necessary to make the request any more irritating.

"Of course, mama." The implication that you didn't prepare well for today doesn't sit well with him, and Frankie heads straight out to the garage to get more of the wine that had been specifically bought for today.

You had bought an entire case. The sight of it makes Frankie smirk with pride. "That's my girl." He hums as he grabs another bottle. Hopefully this means that both mothers will get drunk enough that they won't be able to nitpick you.

It's a hope, as in vain as it might be, and when Frankie goes back into the house he finds things much as he left them. He refills both mothers' wine glasses and then ends up fetching the scotch from the den again for the fathers. It's constant back and forth, not able to sit and talk to Pope or to Yovanna, or even remember where he puts his own drink while he makes sure everyone else is settled.

"Goddamn." He mutters to himself. It's almost as if it's coordinated. Like a family who keeps a server running for their table by requesting something new every time they come back.

And it stays that way until the second you come back downstairs, baby monitor in hand, and sniff the air with a growing look of horror and panic on your face. "Shit. Shit!" You race to the oven with tears already stinging your eyes to find smoke and the smell of burning food coming from your finnicky, ill-behaved oven.

“What?” Frankie rushes back from den where he had been sent to dig out the bottle of bitters after Javi offered to make his father-in-law the best old fashioned he had ever drank. The bottle had been pushed to very back of the cabinet where the liquor was locked up and he had been half convinced it had been thrown out. “What’s wrong?”

"This!" When you drop the oven door open, a cartoonish cloud of smoke billows out. The once gorgeous-looking beef Wellington that you took such tender care to assemble is blackened beyong recognition when you pull the pan out and let it drop onto the stove top like a brick.

It's ruined. Completely and entirely. And you can feel your mother-in-law watching you while she picks out her preferred insult.

“Shit.” Frankie knows how much you have been anticipating this dinner. You hadn’t specifically said to look in on the damn thing but he feels guilty. “Babe, I’m so sorry.”

"I don't know how—" With your shoulders hunched and tears making your voice wobble, you pull the other pan out of the oven to find that the potatoes are scorched as well. Half of dinner is completely ruined. "I've made this a dozen times before!" Sure your oven isn't the best, but replacing it is expensive and you have just learned to live with how it cooks. But nothing like this has ever happened before. "How? How did this happen?"

“Well, you had the oven set to low.” Your mother offers and Vanessa nods. “You cannot possibly cook your little beef thing when it is set so low.” Your mother-in-law adds most helpfully. “I noticed it and asked your mother, so we turned it up for you. I’m sure that you are just too overwhelmed with things to have noticed.”

“It was set low on purpose.” You turn again, this time look at the temperature setting on the oven, and feel yourself deflate when the digital read out says 425F. “Our oven runs hot,” you explain to them, so upset that you’re physically shaking while tears stain your cheeks. They push in and they treat you like shit and then they ruin things and yet they’re still acting like you’re the one who is incompetent. “If you had just asked, I would have told you why it was set low. You’ve essentially set my oven to over 500 degrees and burnt half of dinner because you didn’t think i knew what I was doing.”

“How was I supposed to know?” Your mother gives you a bewildered hurt expression and covers her heart like you are attacking her. Frankie moves over to you and sighs softly as he sees the burnt remnants of the meal you had worked so hard on. “Why have you bought a new oven?” She demands. “Your husband is a pilot. He should be taking care of these things.”

“You should have asked, Mom.” But of course she didn’t. Your mother is the queen of that ‘Mother Knows Best’ attitude and has never admired to being wrong in your whole life. “Being a pilot doesn’t make him a millionaire, and we’ve got the baby. Life is expensive right now. We’ve been saving up like reasonable people.”

Vanessa bristles at the implication that there is something lacking in her baby boy but Santiago sees that as well and quickly steps in to distract her. “It’s being taken care of.” He assures your mother but she huffs and shakes her head. Which makes Vanessa snap her head to the side. “Don’t you dare think ill about Francisco.” She hisses. “He works all the time to make sure your daughter stays home. He’s working himself to death.” Frankie rolls his eyes. “Mama. Stop.” He ordered, feeling like this is getting out of hand. “It’s true. You don’t think I know you called Javi to borrow money?” She demands.

"I work from home, Vanessa. I don't sit around on my ass all day doing nothing!" True that you took your maximum maternity leave, but you had damn well needed it. Postpartum healing took its toll and the depression that went with it had hit you hard. And after Frankie had come back with so many secrets? Well, it's not as if your home life is all sunshine and roses right now.

"Then why does—"

"It doesn't matter why, Mom. It's only our business." None of them need to know about what happened with Frankie's license or anything else. It's not as though they have ever offered to help or support you before so you're not about to share your troubles with them now.

“But—”

“ENOUGH!” Frankie nearly bellows the order, making your mother jump and snap her mouth shut, eyes wide in near fear. Your father looks down at his glass guiltily and even his own mother gasps as she presses a hand to her chest. Only Javi looks somewhat amused by the entire thing, a small smirk of approval twisting his lips. “I don’t give a damn that you drove for hours or flew here to see us for Christmas.” He seethes. “This is our house and I am not going to put up with you mistreating my wife.” His eyes narrow as he turns towards his mother and then towards his mother-in-law. “Either one of you. You don’t like it? Leave.” His tone is stony and flat, leaving no room for argument.

Pope and Yovanna are dead silent in the corner, not willing to meddle in family drama when they've only just arrived, and three of the four parents exchange appalled looks.

"We didn't raise you to be so disrespectful." Your mother snaps, standing from her chair with steam practically pouring out of her ears. "Or to be a terrible cook. Go get our things. We're going to a hotel until you come to your senses."

“Go get them your goddamn self.” Frankie snaps back. “And you aren’t welcomed back until you apologize to her.” That’s one set of parents he’s pissed of completely, so he turns to his mom. “Mama? You gonna be nice or is it gonna be more passive aggressive bullshit comments? Because if it is, you can get the fuck out too.”

"I have never made a passive aggressive comment about--" she begins, but Javier actually laughs at her pious pearl clutching.

"Nessa, that's all you've said to your poor daughter-in-law for years." He tells her bluntly. "Come on. I'll get our stuff." Vanessa looks absolutely appalled, but Javier just shrugs. "Prove me wrong," he insists. "Apologize."

Frankie waits, brows raised and he actually hopes for a moment that his mother will apologize. Her mouth opens and she starts talking, making his heart sink.

“She should—”

“Nope.” He cuts her off, a disappointed look on his face. “I should have put my foot down years ago. That’s my fault. Until you apologize to her, and mean it, you aren’t welcomed in our lives.” He tells her, even though it breaks his heart. “You’re my mother and I love you. But this is my wife. The woman I vowed to spend the rest of my life with. The woman I love. You would have never put up with the kind of shit you give her out of Javi’s dad.” He reminds her. “And I’m done having her cry when you leave.” He nods towards the door. “Merry Christmas. Now I’d like you to leave.”

The stone-silent kitchen is a staring contest for long moments while Frankie’s mother realizes that her son is actually giving her an ultimatum. With a dramatic huff, she pushes out of her seat and storms to the door, shouting something about how his sister would never treat her like this. She shouts so loud that the sound of the baby crying bleeds through the baby monitor and cuts down the stairwell, but when you let out your own wretched, exhausted sob, Frankie stops you.

“I’ve got her.” He promises, reaching out and holding onto your shoulders. “I want you to pour yourself a big glass of wine and go upstairs and get into a bath.” He knows how much you love to soak in the tub, but you haven’t had much of a chance to do that since Mirabel was born. “I’ll take care of everything.”

"I have to figure out what the hell to make for dinner," you insist, intermittently glancing back between Pope and Yovanna, and toward the stairs where your baby girl is screaming.

“I’ll handle it.” Frankie implores, lifting his brows. “Trust me, baby. Go upstairs. I’ve got this.”

"I'm so sorry." The entire day has collapsed and it feels like it's your fault. Despite the fact that you were actively sabotaged and abused for the last hour – only an hour! – it still feels like you failed.

“It’s not your fault.” This comes from Javier, sighing softly as he glances at the two of you. Your mother and father are still upstairs, rummaging around after leaving the kitchen quietly in the face of Frankie’s ultimatum. “Don’t be sorry. Let your husband take care of you.” He looks at his step-son. “I’ll read her the riot act.” He promises.

"You're the only one I wish could stay," you admit to your father-in-law with a deflated shrug, but lean into your husband's side for a moment and just breathe Frankie in. "Okay. I'm going to have a wine bath. Whatever else we end up doing for dinner, there's a huge salad in the refrigerator and a tray of Christmas cookies in the pantry."

“Okay.” He kisses the top of your head before he pulls away to grab the monitor. “Big glass of wine.” He reminds you before he looks over at Pope and Yovanna. “You two good?”

"We're good." Pope nods, but he's already out of his chair and moving to wash his hands. Even after being gone for a few years, he still knows this house and these people as well as anything else in the world. "Go take care of your baby girl. We'll be ready to help when you get back."

“Thanks man.” He nods towards Javi and then rushes out of the room. “Daddy’s coming, Mira.” He calls out. “It’s okay.”

"It's...not usually like this." It's the best you can do to reassure Yovanna when you come out of the pantry again with a bottle of your preferred white wine and a large glass. That bottled sangria that Vanessa likes is garbage, no matter what she pretends.

“It is okay.” She promises. “Family can be difficult.” She smiles, knowing how often her brother puts her in hard situations.

"I'll...be back in a little bit." The idea of a glass of wine in a bath is basically unheard of in your life now and it's something you used to do at least once a week. The chance to relax and feel like you get to start the day over again is incredibly welcome.

"Take your time, hermana." Pope insists. "Take the bottle with you, if you want. We've got this."

With Mira, Frankie has her up on his shoulder, rocking her soothingly. “It’s okay. Shhhhhhh shhhhhhh.” He shushes softly, angry at his mother for not caring about waking his daughter up. She hiccups and starts to quiet down, not needing a bottle or a diaper, just some comfort. “It’s gonna be alright.” He promises, to both her and himself.

He can hear you in the hallway, light steps on the way to the master bathroom so that you don’t make more noise and disturb Mirabel any more than she already is.

It doesn’t take long for her to fall back asleep, although he spends precious minutes carefully laying her back down and making sure she stays asleep. Smiling softly when she shoves her thumb in her mouth as she sleeps. He creeps out of the room and back downstairs as he hears the water start to run from the master en-suite.

“Okay.” Pope is standing in the kitchen with a tied off trash bag sitting near the garage door and the two pans formerly full of burned food now scraped out and refilled with steaming, soapy water. “What’s the plan?” He asks, nodding to Yovanna beside him. “What can we do to help?”

“I’ve got some steaks in the freezer.” It’ll only take twenty minutes to thaw them. “If you want to go fire up the grill, I’ll pull them out.”

"Heard that." Thankfully the stunning Florida weather guarantees a warm Christmas with perfect grilling weather, and Pope heads outside immediately. He can have that grilled fired up and ready in no time.

"I can help, too." Yovanna insists. She would feel awful to not help out under any circumstances, but especially now. "Anything, Francisco. I'm happy to."

“There’s salad, but I know there’s also a carton of mushrooms.” Frankie explains. “Will you slice them and an onion to sauté?” He asks. “She loves onions and mushrooms on her steak.”

"Absolutely." A relatively small task that will make all the difference to someone who is having a hard day? She is more than happy to do what he asks. The three of them set to work immediately and within half an hour the smell of burnt pastry and potatoes is replaced with grill smoke and sauteed aromatics.

You come downstairs in clean, comfortable clothes with a glass of wine in your system, smelling like a bath bomb and looking like you're just starting a brand new day. When Yovanna is in the kitchen with a sautee pan instead of Frankie or Pope, you have to sit with your embarrassment for a moment.

"I'm sorry for...before. That wasn't the first impression that I wanted to make."

“The men are outside.” She tells you with a smile. “The salad looks gorgeous but Francisco said you like onions and mushrooms on your steak.” She explains. “And do not worry. I am just happy that you look more relaxed now.”

"Much." You huff out a laugh, feeling sheepish about the whole thing. "Families at the holidays..."

"Are always pretending to get along?" She laughs. "It is the same everywhere."

"Well...thank you, again." If you knew her better you might go so far as to give her the giant hug of gratitude that you would like to, but that will keep for later in the day. For now the two of you exchange knowing smiles about how ridiculous families can be and you go out the sliding door to the patio where Frankie and Santi are standing at the grill inspecting the image of your sleeping daughter on the baby monitor.

“I’m telling you man, she’s gonna be a problem when she gets older.” Pope huffs. “We need to start scaring away the boys now.”

"What if she grows up to like girls?" Of course they're already in protective mode. That doesn't surprise you in the least. "Or maybe she won't want romance at all. Anything is possible."

“Yeah but the boys can get her pregnant.” He points out, lifting a brow at Frankie’s immediate frown. “Well that’s not happening since she’s going to stay a virgin.” The overly protective father scoffs.

"She's going to be educated on her body and consent, and she's going to have the unwavering support of her parents," you correct them both. But there is still a soft smile on your face when you tuck yourself under Frankie's arm. "And if all else fails, she has Uncle Pope, Uncle Ironhead, and Uncle Benny to scare off anyone who doesn't respect her."

“What about me?” Frankie huffs as he settles his arm at your waist and hauls you closer. You look relaxed, and he’s glad. “How are you feeling, baby?” He asks.

"A little better. Pretty stupid, but better." When you lean into his chest he presses a kiss to your hair and you sigh. "Think our mothers are ever actually going to apologize?"

“If they don’t, we will have peace.” His eyes slip closed and he smiles slightly. “The dream.” He jokes before he opens his eye and looks at you seriously. “They will eventually. When they realize we are serious.”

"No contact with all of our parents except Javier." Another huffed laugh from you ends in a sigh. "Merry Christmas, I guess. Is it bad that I feel relieved?"

“We are having Christmas ribeye’s, with that salad you made, you can have your onions and mushrooms, and I know you have those rolls in there.” He grins. “Washed down with your wine and Christmas cookies.”

"Well...Mira is having a bottle the rest of the day anyway. No reason not to enjoy." With your arms around his waist, you tug Frankie tighter and practically shudder with that sigh of relief that rocks out of you. "Thank you, baby. I know neither of us ever wanted it to come to that with our parents, but thank you for stepping in. And for taking care of things afterward."

“Of course.” He knows that your trust and faith in him has been shaken by the drug charges and then disappearing to South America, but he wants to rebuild it. “Anytime, baby. I love you.”

“I love you too.” That, thankfully, was never in doubt.

******

A year passes with so much incident that it is a task of its own to decide where to start when someone asks you 'what's been going on?'. Planning the next Christmas is easier simply because of logistics. Hosting doesn't feel daunting when the people who are coming to the house are supportive, helpful, and kind.

Dinner is a potluck this year, with all the boys from Frankie's unit bringing their partners. Even Benny has a girlfriend – one who promises she's capable of bringing more to a potluck than jarred salsa and bagged chips – and Frankie is once again going to grill ribeyes. New traditions are falling into place, but the fact is that you're actually looking forward to things this year instead of dreading them.

“Babe.” Frankie ducks into the kitchen to admire the new oven that he had delivered six months ago. “Do you want to do that mashed potato casserole you were talking about or do you want to do baked potatoes this year?”

"Why don't we do baked potatoes and we can put out a bar of toppings and stuff? I can throw some bacon in a pan and chop some scallions." Things are better. You're talking more. You're listening to each other and asking questions instead of assuming. Frankie even comes home early from work once every other week to look after Mira while you have therapy. It's helped your postpartum depression immensely.

“That sounds good.” He agrees, grinning at you. “Pope and Yovanna are going to bring the salad this time. She loves that dressing recipe you gave her.”

"It's a good one." Yovanna has fast become a close friend, joining the sisterhood you have with Teresa, and now with Benny's girlfriend Roseanne. "Everybody should be here pretty soon. I figured there was no use in pretending this is formal. We're all perfectly happy to sit around together and hang out."

“Have you heard anything?” He asks softly, aware that you might have some feelings about everything that went down last year.

"Only from Javier." Frankie's stepfather was the only one who had been in contact, and even that was respectfully sparse. "I've sent him some photos of Mira and he texted this morning to say Merry Christmas and that he hoped the package he sent got here in time."

Even though you have been remarkable about the silence, Frankie steps closer and folds you into his arms for a reassuring hug. “It’ll all work out, baby.” He promises. “I just love seeing you excited for Christmas.”

“It’s easier to be excited when I’m not dreading the arguments and insults.” You lean into him a little tighter and sigh. It’s shit that things had to blow up the way they did last year, but things are better now. You’re both happier. The boys are all back together and Pope had proposed to Yovanna at Thanksgiving. Will and Teresa are ecstatic about expecting their first kid together. Things are good. “I love you, baby. So much.”

“I love you too.” He murmurs softly, kissing your forehead. He had told you everything that had happened and while you were unhappy about it, you hadn’t held it against him. That’s the best gift he could have ever asked for. “Merry Christmas, baby.”

------ Master Tags: @pixiedurango @chattychell @winter-fox-queen @lady-himbo @artsymaddie @princess76179 @paintballkid711 @missminkylove @pedrosbrat @ew-erin @sarahjkl82-blog @sharkbait77 @justanotherblonde23 @lv7867 @recklesswit @mylittlesenaar @f0rever15elf @gallowsjoker @steeevienicks @athalien @sherala007 @skvatnavle @thatpinkshirt @jaime1110 @girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics @goodgriefitsawildworld @greeneyedblondie44 @littlemousedroid @harriedandharassed @churchill356 @ajathegreats-blog @haylzcyon   @beardsanddetectives @kirsteng42 @ladykatakuri @adancedivasmom @madiebear @tanzthompson @emilianamason @bigsdinger @xocalliexo @pedr0swh0r3 @avaleineandafryingpan @charlyrmv @avidreader73 @iceclaw101 @loveslide @elegantduckturtle @becsworld @julesonrecord @its-nebuleuse @itsrubberbisquit @mikeyswifie @guelyury @lizzie-cakes @for-a-longlongtime @vabeachazn @purplerain04 @weho2kcmo @madnessofadaydreamer

[intheorangebedroom]

Tonight you belong to me, epilogue

Summary: He comes to you every Friday, in a shady motel on the outskirts of town. Lee discovers life on her own.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x fem!Reader (OFC)

Rating: Explicit 🔞

A/N: Happy Frankie Friday, Orange bedroom besties 🧡 Here we are, this is the end! I'll see you on the other side 🧡 @frannyzooey marry me? 🧡

Word count: 8.6k (I'll never learn)

[prev] * [series masterlist] *

Epilogue: In The Beginning

He comes to you every Friday, in the loneliness of your room, in the hollow space of your life, through the cold hard rectangle of your phone. 

Hey, baby.

Hey, Frankie.

How’s my girl doing?

The caress of his voice convokes the memory of his touch, of the bedspread’s synthetic fabric, stained and slippery, and the rough material of the brown rug abrading your knees. 

You close your eyes, so you can see it better. His freckles, his dimple. The dip between his collarbones. His skin of gold, the smoothness of his curls, gliding between your fingertips. 

His cold hard stare. His soft sad eyes. 

I’m good. 

You close your eyes and smile, because he’s there, still, another week, true to his word, and the modulated sound in your earpiece lets you hear his own relief, breathed out in a smiling exhale. 

Through space and distance, through memories, his hands ghost your skin. 

Sometimes, the round accents of his low husk guide your hand downward, down between your legs, wringing wistful waves of pleasure out of you. 

Let me hear you come, baby. 

It’s a distant echo. A forlorn imitation of what his body did to yours in the motel room. Outstretched shadows on a cave’s wall. 

And afterward, his voice sounds pained, hurting the same way your heart feels bruised. 

Sometimes, most times, he just wants you to talk. 

Tell me. What’d you do this week? Learn anything new?

Is it worth it? What you've learned in this seven day gap, this open wound of a time-stretch, waiting for his voice to fill your ears like his body once filled your life, is it all really worth it? 

Your bones are worn out, your skin feels too big. Your heart is shrunk, aching, heavy like lead, blackened like coal, near the wild creature crying ruby tears. 

And yet, you learn. Every week, you have something new to tell him. Every week, intently, he listens. 

In the loneliness of your room, in the hollow space of your life, through the cold hard rectangle of your phone, your love continues to grow, nurtured by words and silences. 

—

In a surprising turn of events, you don’t entirely dislike New York. 

The city still mildly scares you. Its buoyant history feels like a sparkling secret you’ll never be let in on. Its mythical aura makes you feel small and provincial. It’s definitely too big, too noisy, too stressful. And, you’ve learned at your expense, ridiculously pricey. 

But it is also completely, blissfully anonymous. People don’t only ignore who you are, they also do not care. Since you got here, your name hasn’t once elicited the silent gasp or double take it never fails to provoke down in Tampa. 

And instead of drowning, forever disappearing, you wake up every morning and breathe in a big gulp of saturated New York air, making the conscious choice to tame the current. 

Spring is undecided, imprecise. It oscillates between chilly mornings and warm afternoons, cumbersome jackets and disorientation. 

Your shabby blue suitcase stands out like a sore thumb in a corner of Polly and Ava’s living-room, styled with slick 1950s furniture, straight lines, confidential art pieces, and quality material. 

Thrown from a life sentence in a glass tower into this transient condition, you vacillate, but hang on tight, and you wait, in between Fridays, to be tethered by the thread of Frankie’s praise and encouragement. 

On weekdays, from 9 to 5, you sit behind a black square desk on the third floor of a modest Manhattan publishing company, proofreading copies of psychiatric essays for typos. 

The work is dull, tedious, an entry-level position hardly above an internship, but the task is concrete, its results tangible. It provides you with a decent salary you might owe entirely to your connection with Polly, and the priceless satisfaction of a job accomplished when the working day is done. 

You miss him. 

Summer is unforgiving. The entire city smells like hot trash, melted asphalt, car exhaust and overwrought engines. The combined heat from millions of strangers' bodies pressed together in urban proximity is otherworldly. 

The nearby presence of the Atlantic Ocean, centuries of waves, dark and unfathomable, is impossible to conceive. Your frazzled eyes search the city sky in vain for the line of the horizon. 

The commute from your furnished studio apartment in Jackson Heights is uncomfortable and never-ending. You read voraciously, to prevent your mind from wandering to the square window with the yellow curtains, the black-edged mirror and the one dollar store painting of the Appalachian. Your lost paradise. Your unexpected home.

At night, you’re too tired. Too tired to eat, too tired to read any more, or even watch television. You stumble onto your empty bed and pray for an empty sleep.

On weekends, you seek refuge in air-conditioned museums. There, in the bustling silence, among crowds of eclectic tourists snapping performative pictures in square format, your life is suddenly, quietly upturned: art understands. Art heals. Art is the key to translating your raw feelings. A catharsis for your searing emotions. 

You miss him. 

With fall come crisp winds, clear lights and yellowing leaves, and the city turns another kind of spectacular. You finally seem to find your bearings. 

At work, you’re given more responsibilities, along with your very own intern. A tall, polite young man in an awful suit that hangs off his lanky frame, he stops blinking every time you address him, hungry eyes snapping to your lips every now and then. It makes you smile, what you do to him. 

In your kitchenette, which is really more of a narrow corridor than anything else, you’ve taped a world map on which you pin a round, colourful thumbtack for every new cuisine you taste. Cold burritos shared with Frankie on the motel’s dirty carpet are hard to beat. But Columbian chicharrón ranges at a close second. 

Forsaking rest, you spend your Sunday afternoons in a 1st Ave cinema, which specializes in pre-war films. In the solitary darkness of the red velvet-lined theater, you fall in love with Louise Brooks, with Pabst’s German realism, and Murnau’s Sunrise. New names and faces crowd your thoughts during your daily commutes: Bette Davies, Theda Bara, Marion Davis... Slapstick comedies have you kicking your feet, and you devour every book and article you can dig out on the Hays Code. 

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, you clock off early and hurry uptown, where you attend evening classes in art history in a small overheated classroom decorated with faded museum postcards from all over the world. 

The attendees form a small mismatched crowd of second-chancers, seeking meaningful connections more than a proper education.

Thierry is the first to approach you. A stupidly handsome, late twenty-something man, sporting a dark Mohawk and second-hand bespoke shoes matched with a leather perfecto, Thierry claims to be French Canadian, and you know better than to call him out on the obvious fib. If anything, you’re more than willing to play along. Thierry takes you out as often as you’ll let him, sometimes to cafés and thrift stores, but more often to gay bars. He says you’re the best wingman he’s ever had, with your distant demeanor and the melancholy in your gaze. 

“My peers love your brand, bébé,” he says.

On one of these drunken late-evenings turned early-mornings, in a Brooklyn dinner with greasy pleather benches, over eggs Benedict and burnt filter coffee, Thierry tells you he was born Travis, in Nowhere, North Dakota. His voice remains surprisingly steady when he explains how, tired of living in fear, he ran off to New York with less than 18 dollars to his name. But his eyes won’t meet yours. Too shiny. Too liquid. 

He tells you about the straight man, married with children, who once broke his heart, and asks you about the one who broke yours. 

“I didn’t need a man to do that,” you answer in earnest. You watch the tears brimming in his dark blue eyes. You hear him say, “I love you, Lee. You’re the best friend I have,” and you believe him.

Around mid-October, Vera joins the Thursday evening class. She’s prompt to initiate conversation, and soon, you spend every other Saturday afternoon in her quaint Brighton Beach apartment, eating blini with homemade jam, mesmerized by her deep gravely voice as she recounts tales of her life in the USSR. Of how she fled the country, back in 1986, with nothing but grit, a suitcase full of photographs, and a heart bleeding memories. She speaks, you find, simply because you are willing to listen. Before you leave, she hugs you strong enough to crack your spine. 

Vera was a mother, once. To a blond boy named Igor, who died of undiagnosed leukemia not long after he’d learned to walk.   

When you leave her place, your clothes are impregnated with her scent, bergamot tea and vanilla tobacco. You take a long stroll to Coney Island in the brisk dusk, clutching your scarf high on your face. The sharp Atlantic wind makes your eyes water. Shivering, you sit on a boardwalk bench, and marvel at the Wonder Wheel’s lights, brightening the crepuscular fall.

You miss him.  

Ava seldom has time for you in her ever busy schedule. Sometimes, the two of you meet for a quick lunch, and every once in a while, she takes you to an art performance where young adults with edgy haircuts douse their naked bodies in paint in front of a live audience to protest climate change or human trafficking. You don’t always understand, in truth, you rarely do, but you always welcome the opportunity to broaden your horizon. 

Polly makes sure to have you over for dinner at least once every two weeks. The regularity is touching. Some nights, you feel like indulging, and take a cab back to your place.

You learn. Every day, you learn. Through sweltering heat and ice-sharp cold, through lively chatter and the crackling of dead leaves. Through loneliness, yours and other’s. You learn. 

Home isn’t always a place. Sometimes, home is people. 

And you miss him, you miss him, you miss him… 

—

Twenty-nine Fridays. 

Frankie once more sat down behind Lupe’s desk at the dispatch center, to count down the weeks since your departure on the large cardboard calendar. 

There’s 29 of them now. Soon, those empty Fridays will outnumber the ones you filled with your skin and your scent. 

Your absence has torn a gaping hole inside his chest, and loneliness came pouring in to fill it. The feeling is alienating. It’s worse than shame, worse than fear, fear of hurting and fear of dying. The grief is all encompassing. It’s worse than everything he’s ever been stricken with. 

“Time will help, hermanito,” his sister had said shortly after you’d left. “Time is gonna make it better, don’t worry. Paso a paso.” 

Will hadn’t said anything. Will would never lie to his face. 

Frankie knows, just like Will does, that time ain’t gonna do shit. If anything, time will only make it worse.

Time has forsaken him. Everywhere around him, people go on with their lives, moving forward, making plans. 

Lua’s curls grow longer, her babbling evolving into fully formed words, and her balance becoming surer as she explores the world around her with her big bright eyes wide open. His beacon. His pride. His little miracle. 

Marcus moved in with Lupe. There was a proposal, quickly followed by talks of a spring wedding.  

Tess’ll be starting college soon, sponsored by the Redfly Family trust, her little sister already attending middle school.

Will went back to Colorado, where he found a counseling position at the VA office in downtown Aurora. 

Benny quit the MMA circuit and followed his brother, like he always does. Met a girl back home, a brunette with water-clear eyes, a kind heart and a sharp sense of humor. Now, they work together on her father’s tree farm, and he says things like, “she gave me a purpose.”

And Frankie’s stuck here. Stuck inside his pain, locked up within his loss with a hole the shape of you inside his chest, surviving on the promise of your voice every Friday at 7pm. Of your cheery tone when you talk about what you’ve discovered and learned, your new friends, your new tastes, your unassertive victories. Your steady healing. 

Only he knows your life up there can’t always be milk and honey. But you won’t tell him about the hardship. Bottling it up for his sake, he assumes, but then, where’s his fucking purpose? 

His longing just follows him everywhere, dimming the sun, turning his food all wrong, turning his friends to enemies, places that once brought him solace no longer meaning relief. The cab of his truck devoid of your scent, a song on the radio that you’re not here to hum, and his blood turns to lead. The whole world around him, a reflective surface to reverberate his grief. 

So Frankie waits. Minutes, hours, and days. He aches and simmers and he waits. He’s cut for grit and patience and restraint, anyway. He waits for time to remember about him, to let him hop back onto that fast-paced train, he waits to be alive again. Hold your body close to him, feel the coolness of your touch, breathe in the scent of your perfume. Be your man. Keep you safe. Forever and always. 

He waits, until one afternoon in early December, when Lupe approaches him in the break room after his shift. 

“We need to talk,” she says. 

The following morning, a Thursday, an incoming call wakes him up. The sound of your sobbing comes in shaky and muffled through the receiver, and his spine grows rigid.

“I need to see you,” you say.

And Frankie knows he’s done waiting. 

—

The front door rattles with three successive knocks. Like a bloodhound, you still, head perking up, a near white-knuckle grip on the vacuum handle. You press the tiny button on your headphones to pause the music, and Kate Bush’s voice fades to silence, allowing the vacuum’s roar to resurface. You kill it, too. 

It’s impossible you could have heard anything over all this din. 

You balance the vacuum handle against the dresser to grab your phone that’s lying there, and check the time on it. 

Noon. Frankie’s plane just took off. He isn’t due here for another three hours. Leaving you just enough time to finish tidying up the apartment, take an everything shower and hop on a cab to go pick him up. You purposefully postponed the cleaning until the very last minute, so you wouldn’t go insane waiting for him in these last hours.

A little pang of guilt flares hot across your neck and cheeks, quick and sharp, at how shamelessly you begged over the phone, a couple of days prior. Letting him hear your sniffling, the sound of your tears rolling down your face, if you could have, just because you couldn’t bear the misery of crying on your own anymore. Unabashed and so very selfish in your need of him. Of his hold and his warmth. His eyes and freckles. The weight of his body, the low thrum of his heartbeat. Petulant like a child. Please, please come here.

You snatch the headphones off your head. The room is silent. Three floors down, the neighbor’s yelling at her husband again, their baby crying. No one in the hallway knocking on your door, then.  

“Damn it,” you mutter, tossing the headphones on the dresser and padding over to the minuscule entryway. Wearing nothing but your sleep shorts and ragged college t-shirt, all of which should have been in last week's laundry load. If someone’s here, they’re in for a smelly treat. 

You wrench the door wide open, like a dare, like a vain wish, and you’re met with the solid wall of Frankie’s broad chest. 

A gasp, yours, short and high-pitched, and he collides into you, his arms circling your waist, pulling you flush against him. His face burrowing in the curve of your neck, his hat knocked off his head with the force of the collision. A hard press, a sharp inhale, he’s hoisting you up and carrying you inside, kicking the door shut behind him. 

Your heart, black and shrivelled, is suddenly too big for your rib cage. The wild creature’s purrs are deafening. Dopamine floods your brain, you’re madly happy, a relief so intense you’re trembling. 

“I’m not leaving this stupid city until you’ve given me this t-shirt,” he says, his mustache grazing the tender skin behind your ear. 

He smells like cold air, and underneath it, him. Old leather, a hint of sawdust, blond and taffy-sweet, and you smile through the tears lumping the back of your throat, wrapping your arms over his shoulders, fingers threading through his curls, digging into his thick jacket, socked feet dangling an inch above the floor. 

“It’s gross. I’ve been sleeping in it for a week, at least.”

“Yea, well, that’s the point, baby.”

You laugh, a choked up sound, half elation half sob, the curve of his own grin felt against your throat. 

“I’ve missed you. Fuck, Lee, I’ve missed you so much,” he groans, and his words, rasped and warped, bear the weight of his loneliness. Months worth of sleepless nights. 

His large hands span your back in all directions, a needy grasp at the soft curves of your hips, back up to your shoulder blades, and down to your waist, making sure —Are you real?— making up for everything that’s been lost. Your back arches into his chest, into his pulsating life force, your leg hitching up along his cold denim. 

There’s all of his strength, all of his need in this embrace. Forever imprinting the shape of you into his flesh. 

“I’ve missed you, too,” you whisper. 

His right hand leaves your back, barely, just long enough to slide the strap of his black rucksack off his shoulder, before it returns to you. Fingers curling around your nape, his forearm aligning with your spine. The metal of his belt digs into your belly as you push into him with a near matching strength, no space left between your bodies for anything but this bright beaming bliss. 

Entwined like honeysuckle and ivy, you stand there, in the entryway, under the dangling naked bulb. Basking into each other’s scent. Bodies thrumming high and strong like a power line of the highest voltage.

“Let me look at you,” he says after a while, hands cupping your face, dark eyes raking over your features under his creased brow, “how are you feeling, baby?”

His gaze flicks over to the thin scar in your hairline before it locks with yours, and it’s a binding spell, again, always, intact and unaltered. Black magic and fate, things that aren’t even real except he makes them. 

“I’m good!” you laugh, your fingers curling around his forearms, a stubborn little tear hanging from your lashes. “I’m good, now.”

“Yea? Good,” he nods. “You look good. You look fantastic.”

Your lips pinch down a bashful, incredulous smile. He leans back into you and presses a pointed kiss to your lips, greedy, wet, open-mouthed, and you respond in kind, eager, starved. He tastes of coffee and him, and you might lose your sanity with how content you are feeling, how happy, how frighteningly complete.

His hands snake under the hem of your t-shirt, and there’s the cold tip of his fingers, the warm cup of his palms, spanning the expanse of your back, roaming over your shuddering skin and your body ignites in their wake, coming back to life, inch after inch after touch.  

You’re the first to break the kiss with a sudden concern, irrelevant, futile, and he’s holding your face again, his eyes hooded with want, drinking you in. 

“I thought your plane landed at 3pm. I wanted to come pick you up. I’m not even done cleaning, I’m sorry.” 

“No, no, I’m sorry. I got to the airport too early,” he chuckles. “Figured I could change my flight. I should’ve texted you.”

“Oh no, it’s fine,” you start, but his face slots back into the curve of your neck, and you flinch with a new sensation, as he nuzzles his way up, his plush lips a soft caress over the shell of your ear, his scruff a soft tickle. A dark shade of amber pooling down inside you. The thinner hair on your nape standing up. 

“I’m so glad you’re here, Frankie,” you breathe out, voice weighed by that thick and sticky thing coiling in your center. “It must have cost you a fortune.”

“Got a veteran discount. And even if I didn’t, I couldn’t fucking care less about the price,” he murmurs into your skin.

A veteran. A pilot. Once more, always, the notion turns your blood to mush, thick like molasses, saccharine like a schoolgirl crush. And then, a thought, overwhelming, terrible: this man, a veteran, a pilot, dropped everything to fly across the country and make sure you were okay. Because to him, you are worth it. Because he cares. Because you’re his.

Pride, fierce and territorial, tightens your belly. Pride and that something else. 

“Do you want something to drink?” you manage to ask, a reminder that you’re still very much your mother’s daughter. “Coffee? Something to eat? Do you need to rest?” 

“Thanks, baby,” he says, straightening up to let you see the wicked grin dimpling his gorgeous face, “I got everything I need right here.”

—

Through the density of his body, tense and giving, through a need stronger than the both of you, in the stifling intimacy of a closed motel room, month after month, week after week, you’ve learned him. 

Out of necessity, you’ve allowed time and physical distance to come between you and him, only to find the knowledge is still there, constituent to your very being. Ingrained, ineradicable. Like an instinct, like the sun’s fiery circle burnt into your retinas through closed eyelids. 

Mellow inside and out, lightheaded and boneless, you follow him to the kitchen. Standing close to him by the steel sink as he washes his hands, enraptured, enamored, chest pressed to the back of his arm, cheek rubbing the brawny swell of his shoulder. Humming, like a cat purrs. 

You lead him into the room where you eat, sleep, and dream of him, bare walls, sparse furniture you never chose, a single narrow window. It’s supposed to be home but doesn’t feel like it, until he steps in, and everything changes.  

He looks massive in here, just like he did in the kitchen, too large for your everyday life, all proportions distorted, your perspective reframed by the scale of his shape. 

You watch him undress, and the details of him resurface. The plane of his solid chest, the breadth of his shoulders, when he removes his jacket. The graceful arabesque of his wrist tattoo, his lean forearms, when his flannel slides off his frame. The dip of his collarbones with its firework of sparkling freckles. His tanned skin, his softer belly, his scars and old wounds, when he tugs off his t-shirt. The trail of darker hair underneath his navel. His thighs, as he slides down his denim, thick and strong, his knees, his calves, the harmonious shape of him, the sum that surpasses the parts, everything so perfect, and you realize just how much you remember, how delusional you had been, thinking you could go on without it.

Everything pushed to the back of your consciousness, so the separation could be bearable. 

As he stands before you in the gray midday light, your desire is tinged by mute apprehension. You fled Tampa moved by the urgent necessity of your own survival. Now that you've shed most of your scarred skin, now that the danger no longer feels imminent, how will you survive his absence, once he’s gone?

Frankie calls your name, his round husk roping you out of your head, and you ask, “Should I keep my t-shirt?”

“Not today. Today, you take off everything.”

Sat on the edge of your bed, he beckons you, guiding you to stand between his spread thighs with firm, tender hands. The reverence that softens his mahogany eyes, the love and want you find there, it’s all yours. Yours to keep and treasure. 

The tip of his fingers thread along your curves in a delicate touch, brushing down the back of your legs, up to the small of your back, along your spine. Then down your arms, his lips nestling into the inside of your wrist, smooth and fragrant. A soft trail of love, light kisses and caress, shedding weeks of longing in their wake. 

You cup his face, thumbs slotting in the bare patches of his scruff jaw, and relish in the way he leans into your hold. 

He bends into you, his mouth a wet press to your soft belly. The scrape of his teeth, gently teasing. 

Twining your fingers into his thick curls, your fingernails scrape over his scalp. The echo of his groan reverberates deep into your center, slick leaking warm down your folds. You tug his face back to look at him, and ever so quiet, he hums, the sweetest sound, the greatest gift, eyes flickering shut under the pleading arch of his brow, a smile curling the corner of his lips. So much abandon. So much trust. You’re falling.

A fleeting memory tugs at your heart, wistful, indelible. Yours for the night only, and your breathing falters, you’re sinking deeper. 

Yours forever, if you’d only say the word. 

“Do you remember when you wouldn’t let me touch your hair?” you tease, but there’s hardly any air left in your lungs. 

His smile broadens. 

“Remember when you told me your name was Marion?”

Your laughter rushes out of you and his eyes flash open, his smile fully bloomed, transforming his face, all dimples and crinkly eyes. 

“Come here, Marion,” he chuckles, sitting you over his sturdy lap. 

All at once, you’re crushed against his chest to the music of his rumbling mmhs, before his embrace loosens, head dipping, nipping at your collarbone, calloused palm skimming up the underside of your breast.

“Fucking perfect,” you hear him growl before his mouth latches around your nipple.

You keen, quiet, grateful, eyes fluttering close as his tongue twirls around the hardening bud, hanging on for dear life to the breadth of his shoulders. So many sensations, after feeling so little for so long. There’s a live-wire buzzing down from your sternum to your core, and your pulse’s a desperate staccato, you struggle to remain afloat.

With an appreciative sound, he sucks on your nipple, a rough hand squeezing your breast, and when he bites into the soft flesh of it, it shoots straight to your clit. Your hips bucking forward of their own volition, seeking more.

Under your folds, his cock twitches, exquisitely stiff for you, already. 

“I could come like that, you know?” you pant, rolling your hips into the bulk of his want.

A shake of his curls, and he lets go, his mouth releasing your breast with a wet sound.

“No,” he husks, teeth ghosting the column of your neck, “you’re coming on my cock. Put it in.”

Your heart stutters, skips a beat, or two, or several. 

His fingers dig into the meat of your thighs but he’s not moving you away, and there’s no space between your sealed bodies, no leeway for any movement. You’re trapped in his hold, pinned to his skin, glued to the amber golden light of him. And your hips keep rolling, and your heart keeps tripping, and your want keeps swelling. 

His lips wrap over the beating vein in your neck, sucking on the tender skin, sharp and stinging, teeth sinking into the surfacing blood. You lean into him, lean into the bite, lean into the pain.

You give yourself to it, all the love and the want and the affection, lose yourself in it, limp and pliant as it pours inside you, and everything has a name, now, everything is right, as his touch dissolves all the hurt calcified around your heart, all the fear you wouldn’t let out, all the failures and the doubt. 

You breathe out his name, and he breathes out yours, and you’re whole, bright, in bloom. Brimming with life.

He fits in your hand, warm and hefty, smooth skin and bulging veins, throbbing under the caress of your thumb, leaking thick and tangy over your knuckles, and you’re desperate for a taste, but you can’t let him go.

“Put it in, come on” he grits, but there’s no bark to his words, only need, bleeding into the bruising furrow of his fingers into the plush of your ass. 

A lift, you’re weightless in his hold, and he’s pushing thick and stiff at your entrance. Your face hanging above his, lips parted, trembling, and it’s already too much, the way everything within you pulsates and tingles. 

His gaze levels with yours, and his eyes spear into your eyes before he lowers you onto him with an unyielding grip and a shaky exhalation. And with each splitting inch, the searing girth of him stretching you blind. 

Fingers curled around his biceps, forehead pressed to his, you sink down to the hilt. The coarse hair at his base grazes your clit and sweat beads over your temple. 

With measured breaths, he pauses, giving you time to adjust. Eyes skittering over the small line splitting your brow, the quiver of your lip that you're too full to bite down on. 

For the first time ever, there has been no Stop me. This is something else. 

This is what comes next. What you’ve earned, what you’ve prayed for. 

There’s a tremor in his frame, the only evidence of his waning control, and he grabs at your ass, rocking you onto him, languid, scorching, a deep grind, perked up nipples grazing his solid chest, and you're already ascending. 

“Frankie,” you whine, plead, beg, walls a frantic flutter as his cock slots right into the center of you in rolling waves.

“Let go, Lee” he rasps, “let go, I got you.”

With the hushed assurance of his words, round and sincere, your release crackles and tenses. You slump in his arms, undone, rebuilt.

“I’ve missed you, Lee,” he presses into the slope of your shoulder, “God, I’ve missed you.”

—

He’s insatiable. Some of it is reminiscent of your first encounters at the motel, when his hunger was indiscernible from his rage. 

Tied up, with your arms behind your back and your face buried in the mattress as he holds your ass up with a bruising grip on your hips and pounds into you hard, rough, relentless. 

His fingers tangled in your sweat-damp hair, your knees on the hard tiles of the shower as he fucks your throat until you forget how to breathe. 

And suddenly reverential, his gentleness nearly too much when he wakes you up to cover your body in kisses and strokes. Overwhelming, the desperation with which he seeks the contact of your skin, his gaze spearing into your eyes as he grinds deep into your heat. 

The urgent, low husk of his voice when he murmurs, “Tell me what you want, Lee, let me give you what you need.” 

When he sits you on his face and relents control, when you pull on his curls to press him closer to where you want him, shameless and wanton, riding your release.

—

“And what about the Russians?” you ask, propping your chin on his chest. “Have you ever fought against the Russians?”

“Jesus, woman,” he laughs, “how old do you think I am?”

“I’m not talking Cold War Russians, I’m talking CIA stuff. I know you lot, Delta operatives.”

“Oh yea?” he grins, cocking an eyebrow. “What have you heard?”

A mischievous expression dances on your face and he chuckles again, a wider grin pulling his lips. Lightheaded, is one way to put it. Melting inside is another. Giddy like a teenager with your levity. 

Your eyes flicker down to his dimple and you lift your hand off his chest to brush your finger into the dip in his cheek. You keep it there for a beat, seemingly absorbed, enthralled by the touch, and then it’s over. You lower your head back onto him, cheek resting right over his scar, he knows there’s no coincidence to it.

Frankie lets out a silent sigh. His head lolls back on the fat pillow. Twenty-nine Fridays, carved out and hollow. Twenty-nine weeks, 1123 miles, carrying his love and hunger like a penance, and then this. Your naked body tucked against his, under the thick downy comforter, in this tiny room saturated with your scent. Your taste on his tongue. Your easy laughter. Your gaze sinking into his eyes. It's a blessed sensory overload. That old slicing ache in his chest singing another song. 

Somehow, you look younger than when he last saw you. Maybe not younger, just more carefree. Understandably so. Those last weeks in Tampa, you had become so frail. But you’ve put on some weight since. It sits harmoniously on your figure, suits your features and brightens up your face. Means there’s more of you, too, and he can’t keep his hands from roaming your curves. 

He knows he’s gotta talk to you at some point. It’ll kill the mood, probably. Inform you of that decision Lupe took that will affect his life for the foreseeable future. Affect yours as well, maybe. To some extent at least. That insane rippling effect. His past choices always breathing down his neck, when he’d give everything for a clean slate.

But you look so fucking delicious. He went so fucking long, too fucking long without you, now he cannot get enough. It’s too soon to risk it. 

There were plans. An itinerary you had drafted in the short lapse of time it had taken him to organize his trip here, and that you’d texted him on the night before his flight. Things you wanted to show him, places that matter to you. The Coney Island boardwalk, the Guggenheim, and some marine paintings in the Frick Collection you were excited to share with him. He’d texted back with some requests of his own: your office building, the place in Brooklyn where you attend the evening classes, your favorite places to eat. 

But since he arrived, he’s kept you in, or you have him, he cannot tell. Either way, the two of you haven’t left the dim apartment, and any notion of time has been reduced to the alternation of semi-dark urban nights and stonewashed winter days. 

He tries not to dwell on the fact that your apartment barely looks lived in. Bare walls, save for that map in your kitchen, if he can even call that a kitchen. Your suitcase standing beside the dresser, like you’re ready to take off. No curtains, no rug, no lampshade. It’s almost like you don’t really want to settle. Like you’re still trying to decide if you truly belong here. 

The only evidence of you is taped to the mirror above the dresser. A Polaroid of a kid in pigtails blowing raspberries, washed out yellow and blurry by the years. Your sister, if he had to guess. 

And that receipt tucked between the pages of a leather-bound book on your nightstand. From the cantina. That very first Friday he brought food to the motel. He checked the date stamp. 

It breaks his heart, the way you’re torn and scattered. Neither here nor there. His guilt might be irrelevant, misplaced, but it churns his insides nonetheless.

Still, New York is where you live now. You’ve made some good friends, work a job you seem to like enough to give it your best. It’s probably just a matter of time before you store away the suitcase. 

Part of him wants to go out and explore this city that has robbed you from him. Learn everything he can about your life here, so that when he flies out on Saturday morning, he can picture you in your environment, going about your daily life. Anything to try to survive your absence. 

He wants to meet your family. A dinner is scheduled sometime this week with your sister and her girlfriend. He’d like to meet your friends. Further explore the mixed emotions and feelings he experiences whenever you mention these people, whenever he thinks of them. Gratitude, for the affection and comfort they give you. Envy, for the parts of you that are familiar to them and that himself will never get to know. 

The person you are when you’re with them. 

“Frankie?” you call quietly, your leg a smooth brush against his as you hitch it higher.

“Yes, baby?”

“Have you ever thought about how people are like… made of layers?”

“That’s funny, I was just thinking about it.”

“Really?” you exclaim. 

Your head pops up comically, and his jaw tenses. Why can’t he bring himself to let you see the dopey smile that melts his face whenever you look at him like this? Until now, he’s never felt vulnerable demonstrating his affection. 

But things with you are different. That living pull between you is too big, bigger than him. He senses it thrumming behind your lungs while it whirs inside his chest like an answer, constantly, it might bleed him dry with its intensity. Like first love. Pristine. Brand new. All encompassing. 

“Mmh,” he grunts, gathering his brain. “Yea. Or maybe like puzzles?”

“Yes,” you agree, your tone serious, and you scoot up a notch, propping your head in your hand, so you don’t have to crane your neck to look at him, “puzzles, exactly. And everyone you know holds a different piece of you.”

“Yea, pretty much, I guess.”

“And so the puzzle of you is never truly complete because the pieces are never all together at once.”

You pause, pondering over your reflection. 

“Do you think all the pieces could fit together, if they were assembled?” Frankie asks after a moment, a strange sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, like his center of gravity has suddenly shifted. 

“Probably not,” you muse, head shaking imperceptibly, your gaze lost somewhere in the distance.

The memory of the motel room resurfaces, stifling heat, amber lighting. The distance that sometimes clouded your eyes, your silent retreat within yourself, that inner world of yours, your island. Week after week, getting closer, within his reach, yet never fully accessible. He swallows thickly. 

“I think you got all my pieces,” you say in a casual tone, in contradiction with his thoughts.  

He tightens his grip around your waist.

“I don’t think I do, baby. But it’s okay,” he lies, as if he’s not free-falling from the sky, plummeting straight into your ocean. 

Slipping out of his hold, you sit up on the rumpled bed, your naked back turned to him. 

“Do you think I’ve got all your pieces?” you ask.

“God, I hope not,” he sighs, running a palm over his face. 

Hugging your knees, you lean forward, away from him. The room is thick with a compact silence, as if all the sounds were absorbed by fresh snow.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?” he asks, brushing his knuckles along your spine. A shiver fizzles under his touch.

“I was wondering… Is it important? Do you have to know someone to love them? What’s the right balance between knowing your partner, and knowing yourself? What’s the tipping point?”

His hand splays over your lower back.

“The tipping point to what?”

You shake your head in frustration, straightening your back, your knee bumped against his thigh. Offering him your profile, but not your direct gaze.

“I don’t know how to explain. When do you start losing yourself to be what others… what people expect you to be? At what moment do you start feeling isolated? Misunderstood? In a relationship, I mean? Because that’s the beginning of the end.”

“Fuck, Lee, I don’t– I don’t have those answers,” he frowns, sitting up with a cinch. “I know I love you, all of you, even the pieces I don’t know. I don’t want you to ever feel like you have to be someone else.” 

Reaching behind you, you take his hand and weave your fingers with his. Your fingertips are cold, and he squeezes his into the back of your hand, to imprint some of his heat into you. Some of his words, too. 

At last, you fully turn. Under your scowl, something darkens your gaze. Something Frankie cannot decipher. His face close to yours, his eyes boring into your eyes, the moment tightens his throat, decisive, important. The pregnant silence. The gray winter light painting shades of blue on your pale skin. The old pain spears through his heart, sweet and beaming. It’s gonna split him in half. He knows he’ll never forget it. Never let go of this sensation. 

“I trust you, Frankie.”

“I trust you, too.”

Your brow shifts, the tiniest inflection, and your eyes widen, luminous like a rising sun, like a summer morning.

“I promise I’ll always be honest with you.”

“I promise I’ll always be honest with you, baby,” he rasps, the weight of his secret sitting on the back of his tongue. 

—

On the fourth day, at last, you venture outside, ushered by your sister’s and Polly’s dinner invitation. 

The itinerary had to be stripped to the bare minimum. Frankie will be flying out in two nights. Your heart stutters and sinks every time you think of him leaving. 

The cold is unforgiving, the sky a gray shade of white, heavy and full like a quilted blanket. Against reason, you offer to take him to Coney Island, where the Atlantic wind will freeze the ears off your head. You’re not sure why it’s important for you to take him there, but he says he’s game. 

Bundled up in your thrift store coat, your face half concealed between a scarf the size of a tablecloth and a wool hat, you watch him brave the cruel temperatures with nothing more than a Sherpa lined trucker jacket over a fleece shirt, and his ragged Standard Heating Oil cap. 

As you stand and shiver, waiting for the bus —the first act of an interminable route— the tip of his ears poke out from underneath his curls, reddened by the frosty air. Sliding your numbed-out hand in his, you’re surprised by the warmth of his palm. Your mind wanders to the harsh conditions his former life has trained him to endure. You squeeze his hand with all of your strength. 

Later, sitting side by side on the subway’s hard plastic seats, you rant to him about your love-hate relationship with the NYC Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The never-ending rides, ideal for reading, listening to music, or idle contemplation. The welcome aloneness of anonymity, in a sea of indifferent strangers. 

He listens, his sharp profile tilted down in concentration over your words, and you’re mindful to downplay the downsides, the maddening time-consuming sprawl of the city, the promiscuity, the last-minute route changes and the undecipherable PA announcements. 

It’s not a lie as much as an omission. You can’t send him back over there with the knowledge that despite all its perks, you’ve failed to make this place your home. 

Thinking of your earlier promise, you fall silent, the deafening thunder of the train’s wheels over the tracks ringing out in your ears like a metallic injunction.

Your head lolls onto the round slope of his padded shoulder. His large hand curls over your thigh with a strong squeeze as he presses his lips to your temple. 

“What are you thinking, baby?”

“I was thinking that I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to living here,” you confess.

His shoulder slumps under your cheek. 

It’s another hour on the F train before you make it to the ocean. 

On the boardwalk, by the deserted amusement park, the wind slices through you, biting the exposed skin of your cheeks and chilling your bones. The defunct Parachute Jump stands erect like a skeletal sentinel, guarding over the memories of summers past. The graceful Wonder Wheel’s silhouette stands out in bright colors against the bleak December sky, like a benevolent promise, the assurance of continuity and the return of better days. 

“I think it’s my favorite season to be here,” you murmur.

“I can see the appeal,” Frankie rasps against the wind, eyes trained on the line of the horizon over your head. His arms circling your waist, the wall of his solid heat at your back.

“What have you told your sister about me?” he asks after a moment.

“Not much. Are you nervous?”

“No, not really. Wait, should I be? Her girlfriend’s a shrink, right?”

You laugh heartily, and immediately regret it when air made of pure frost rushes inside your lungs, freezing its way to the very end of your bronchioles. 

“Polly’s nice, don’t worry about her. Don’t worry about either of them. I love them, but I’m not waiting for their blessing.”

You’re done abiding that collective “we.” Another resolve rising up to the surface without your conscious knowledge of the process. 

“Oh shit, look at that,” Frankie exclaims. 

Above you, snowflakes descend from the white sky in a fast-paced twirl. Your very first New York snow. It’s neither fluffy nor cute, though, more like fierce little icy shards barreling toward you like small crystalline weapons. 

Your first thought is of his child.

“Has Lua ever seen the snow?”

“No.”

You squint against the wind and the stabbing snow, against the white daylight and all of your past hesitations.

“I can't wait to meet her, you know.”

He pulls you in closer, reaching out for your body through layers and layers of winter clothes. 

For a while now, the feeling has grown steady and strong inside of you, taking up more space each day. Nurtured by the pictures and many stories you’ve asked Frankie to share with you. This time, you’re better equipped to name it, from the very beginning. And it’s strange, in a tranquil kind of way, the unconditionality of this love. The irrationality of it. You love her, without any reason for it. You love her, just because. 

“How is it, being a parent? Did you know from the start what to do?”

“Oh fuck no,” he scoffs wryly. “Most of the time, I feel like she’s the one teaching me how to be her dad.”

The honesty of the statement makes you smile.

“Do you think you could bring her, next time?”

“She’s gonna have to get used to it.”

Frankie’s words reach your ear as you’ve already spoken yours. You whip around in his arms to face him, struck by the look on his face. Like he’s trying to chew his molars.

“Wait, what? Used to what?”

“She’s gonna have to get used to the snow.”

—

Your eyes are fucking blazing, so big they eat up half your face. A single teardrop clings to your lashes, from the near polar gale, probably, and you’re shivering cold. 

He can’t stall any longer. Not again. Not this time. Not when he just gave you his word to always be honest with you. 

“Lua’s mother's getting married. They’ll be moving to Rochester in the spring. Her fiancé’s from there. His father passed away a couple weeks ago, and his mother has ALS. He wants to move back to take care of her.”

“Rochester… New York, Rochester?”

Frankie nods. Against his chest, your lean figure grows stiff. 

“She’s taking Lua with her?” you ask in a thin voice. 

Frankie nods again. The wind picks up in gusts, those sharp snowflakes falling down obliquely, murderous, whipping your faces relentlessly. He wants to get you somewhere inside, somewhere warm. What if you get sick when he’s about to leave? 

Why you seem to fall for the things that are the most arduous to love is a complete mystery to him. This place in the winter. Him.

Your fingers curl around his lapel. 

“She’s taking Lua, yea. We talked about it. I’m gonna have to relocate. There’s no way I’m seeing my kid less than I already do. I started scouting for jobs in the area.”

“Is that why you came here? To tell me?”

“I came here because you said you needed to see me, Lee,” he answers, the hint of a scowl sharpening his tone.

You tilt down your face and furrow into his neck, your woolly hat a fuzzy tickle against the scruff of his chin. Your unrelenting tenderness, that brought him back from the darkness.

“I’ve checked the flights here from up there. It’s a short trip, a little under two hours. I could come down to visit every other weekend. If you want me to, of course” he adds, his voice warped with sheer fucking terror, his heart thumping in his throat. 

“I don’t like it,” you shoot right back, rising your face to look him dead in the eye. 

It’s that same look again, the one from that very first night at the bar, feverish, lost, hopeful against all odds, against your better judgment. Instinctively, his hands fly to cup your face. It’s cold as marble, and his palms ignite at the contact of your skin, again, still, always. Your eyes pool with something dark and dense, your fingers leaving his jacket to cuff his wrists. 

“Every other weekend isn’t enough, Frankie. It’s not enough.”

“What are you saying, Lee?”

“I'm saying I want to go there with you.”

His pain huffs out of him. Disbelief in a puff of white breath. 

“You want to follow my ex and her new husband to fucking nowhere up north, when you just settled here?”

Brow pinched in a stern expression, you nod frantically between his palms.

“Yes. I want to be with you.”

“What about your sister? Your job? Your friends? What about–”

“I can find another job,” you cut it, words punching out of you and landing straight into his gut. “You said it’s only two hours to fly here, I can visit them, I want to be with you, Frankie, please, please, plea–”

His mouth crashes over yours, silencing your plea. Your lips are icy-cold as you press back into his kiss. He feels your arms rounding his back, your little fists bunching his jacket, clinging to his shoulders. He could swear he feels your heart, too, pounding loud against his, leaping out into his rib cage, exactly where he wants it, where he needs it, next to his, to keep it warm and safe. 

How did he get here, on this freezing boardwalk, facing the dark immensity of the Atlantic Ocean on the cusp of a second chance? On the verge of everything he never dared to long for? Everything he has ever truly wanted? 

“You’re gonna come with me, baby?” he chokes, the words rolling thick over his tongue. 

“Yes,” you sniffle, a tear running down your cheek.

“You’re gonna let me love you? Gonna let me build you a home?”

“Yes, Frankie,” you nod again, a smile tugging your lips, more tears slipping down your face, and he’s surprised the wind doesn’t turn them into pear-shaped diamonds. 

“Okay. Okay, alright,” he smiles. “Can we get somewhere warm now?”

You laugh, leaning into his hold. Blue lips, red cheeks, pink scar. Eyes of gold. 

“Yes,” you agree with another sniff. “Remember when we wished for seasons?”

The End

****

End notes: alright, Orange bedroom besties, raise your hand who thought they wouldn't end up together? I tried, this time I really tried, but there's nothing I can deny this man... or you, I guess? This series took a big chunk out of my life. It consumed a lot of my heart, time, energy, brain, emotions... Wow, look at that, not unlike therapy, huh? Anyway, enough about me, my point is, THANK YOU. Thank you for your patience, I know I'm the slowest and I feel terrible, thank you for reading, or for just passing by, thank you for bookmarking for later, engaging, lurking, liking, commenting, reblogging, sending an ask, reccing, thank you for supporting me in any way and manner, thank you thank you thank you, Ily and I appreciate you, genuinely, so very much 🧡 Thank you Kelli my love, for beta reading that whole damn thing with so much kindness, for teaching me so patiently, for holding my hand every step of the way, for listening to my endless rambling, for being you, smart and talented, selfless and gracious, for being my friend. This is a story about hope, and your stories brought back hope into my life. I love you, I like you, I admire you, until the end of times 🧡 Thank you Lua @pedrit0-pascalit0 for letting me love you on main, oops I mean use your name! Thank you for sharing your thots on the Pilot™ with me, thank you for being a menace in DMs and keeping me alive and alert with your smart and talent and humor. Ily. Big loads 🧡 @dreamymyrrh you know what you did, and everything you gave this story. I'm so grateful for you 🧡 I love you more, I don't want to hear anything, shhhhh 🧡 Now I'm gonna go lie in the dark utterly terrified that I won't ever have another idea or write another word rest a little bit and get back to work as soon as inspiration strikes again!

THANK YOU ALL 🧡

[fettuccin-e]

Tag-Teaming

Kinktober Day 5: Threesome

Tags: Frankie "Catfish" Morales x Reader x Santiago "Pope" Garcia, afab!fem!reader, tag-teaming, unprotected piv (wrap it up gang dont be dumb), fingering and oral (f!recieving), Santi and Frankie both have filthy mouths how dare they (w/c: 1.1K)

A/N: I have been wanting to write a Santi x Frankie x Reader fic for forever okay and kinktober really gave me an excuse, but writing threesomes is so HARD (in more ways than one hehehe) so props to anyone who can write threesomes regularly because it's so difficult. Anyway these two can sandwich me between them anytime (I have been following prompts from this list by @flightlessangelwings!)

It shouldn’t surprise you how good they are together, how well they work. They’re a team. They've always been a team. Why would this be any different?

But fuck, it’s so much different experiencing it, not just seeing it in the field. Frankie plastered against your back, your legs braced over his thighs as he spreads you apart, spreading you so wide for Santiago. Fucking Santi, his cock pressed so deep inside you it’s like you can’t breathe, pressing kiss after kiss to your lips as he breaks you open around him.

“Fuck her harder Pope,” Frankie grumbles, pinching your aching clit between two wonderfully calloused fingers. “Fuck her like you goddamn mean it.” His voice in your ear, his filthy fucking mouth, make your cunt clench around Santi’s cock, and the man groans at both the feeling and Frankie’s command, pounding his cock into you hard.

Frankie rubs furiously at your clit, sending your back arching against his chest, gasping for air. “That’s it, baby, that’s it. Let yourself fuckin’ feel it. Santi’s cock feels so good, doesn’t it?”

“God, yes, oh my fucking God,” you whine. Santi chuckles, all smugness and delirious pleasure. He rocks into you at an angle that has him jamming into your sweet spot relentlessly. “He feels so fucking good, ‘s so fucking big.”

Santi leans forward again, capturing your lips with his. “You think I’m big, hermosa, I can’t wait to see how you take Frankie’s cock. He’s gonna split you apart, stretch this pussy so fuckin’ wide,” Santi mutters against your mouth.

The thought makes you moan, pressing back against the unmistakable length of Frankie's cock, hard and aching, pressed against your skin. You hear Frankie suck in a labored breath, his fingers pausing on your clit. “You wanna cum, sweetheart?" Santi says, his voice dark with promise. "Get all loose to take Frankie so deep in this little cunt?”

This time, Frankie groans from behind you, deep and rumbling. The sound is intoxicating, especially as his fingers start rubbing at your pussy all over again. An endless mantra of “please, please, please,” escapes from your lips, and Santi growls, fucking into you so hard it makes tears spring to your eyes. You claw at Santi’s back, into Frankie’s forearm, gripping onto them both for dear life.

“C’mon, baby, cum on Santi’s cock, bet you look so pretty when you do. Wanna feel this pretty pussy clench around his cock,” Frankie murmurs darkly in your ear. He snakes his other hand up for body, pinching one of your nipples between his fingers. “Don’t you want to see Santi cum, cariño? Won’t he look so pretty?” 

A look up at Santi, his curls drenched with sweat, flush high on his cheeks as his hips work between yours, has you nodding furiously at Frankie’s words, and fuck, you’re cumming at the sight of him, of Santi, so beautiful and debauched between your thighs. Your body locks up with it, your pussy clenching around his length still working into you, Frankie holding you tightly to his chest as Santi fucks you through it.

“Fuck, yes, that’s it,” Santi growls, pressing himself as deep into you as he can, his hips twitching as he fills you up. And God, Frankie was right, Santi is beautiful, twitching through his orgasm, jaw clenched and pupils blown wide. He leans forward to kiss you in a way that is fucking filthy, licking into your mouth desperately, swallowing your moans. You breathe together through it, and when you finally stop trembling, Santi pulls away from your mouth with a feral grin.

“Wanna give Fish a turn, baby?” he whispers, and you manage to mumble a yes, even though your brain has been turned to mush. Santi chuckles, the smug bastard, and slips out of you, the emptiness making you whimper.

“I know, bebita, I know,” Santi says, pressing a kiss to your lips. “Frankie’s gonna fill you up again, I promise.”

You lift your hips, turning  your head to press a kiss to Frankie’s lips as Santi grabs Frankie's cock, pressing the tip to your entrance. Fuck, it’s thick, popping past your entrance as you sink your hips down, down, stretching yourself around him. It seems fucking endless, how deep he reaches into your cunt.

“That’s it, baby, it’s so big, isn’t it?" Santi whispers, "Frankie fills you up so good, yeah? Treats this pretty pussy like it fucking deserves?”

“Santiago.” Frankie growls, his fingers digging into your thighs as you clench around him like a vice at Santi’s words. Fuck, he’s so close already. Watching Pope fuck you already had his cock throbbing beneath you, and now, in the hot clutch of your cunt, he feels like a goddamn virgin. And with Santiago whispering some of the filthiest shit he’s ever heard in his life between the three of you, there’s no way he can last very long.

He’ll make you cum first though. Of course he will.

You nearly scream as Frankie pumps his hips up beneath you, spearing you deep on his cock. He holds tight to your thighs as he pounds furiously in and out of you, ripping you to pieces on top of him. He’s so fucking warm against your back, Santi radiating heat against your front, and you swear to God that you could pass out then and there. Fuck, it’s so good, Frankie’s cock drags against your g-spot with every fucking thrust, unrelenting and utterly debilitating.

And then, Santi lays down on his front, eyes trained on where you and Frankie are connected, and sucks your clit into his hot mouth.

This time, you really do scream, your hands flying down to tangle in Santi’s hair while he licks feverishly at your clit, and you cum, Santi licking between your legs, Frankie pounding up into your cunt. You thrash between them, utterly lost in the feeling of it, hot tears leaking down your cheeks.

“Fuck yes, baby, that’s our good girl,” Frankie groans from behind you.

“Please, please cum Frankie, need you to fucking cum,” you cry, and Frankie has no choice but to follow your orders. He sinks deep inside, biting into your shoulder as he drowns your pussy in his cum. The thought of it mixing with Pope’s inside of you has him shaking through his orgasm.

“God, look at that,” Santi murmurs from between your legs, watching you clench around Frankie so tight he can barely move, cum leaking out around where Frankie is buried deep inside you. His cock twitches at the sight. Later, he thinks, later, we’ll do this again, over and over.

For now, he helps Fish guide you off of his lap, laying you between them. The three of you plaster yourselves against each other, breathing together. A unit, a team. 

You wouldn’t have it any other way.

[emmcfrxst]

SANTIAGO “POPE” GARCIA + funny tweets

BENNY / FRANKIE / WILL

[cocodiem]

adorable 🥰

I hope you feel better soon! How about 'HOLDING HANDS UNDER THE TABLE' or 'pressing your foreheads together after a kiss' for Santiago Garcia. I'll let you choose. :)

It shouldn’t feel the way it does.  It should feel weird.  Disjointed.  Strange.

Santiago Garcia has been your best friend since you were in the second grade together.  Though high school.  Through his military service.  Through your college years.  Through countless boyfriends and girlfriends.  You’ve always been each other’s stalwart person, the one you can each count on when lovers and friends and family disappoint.

Kissing him should feel wrong.  You’ve always maintained that you were both too evolved for such nonsense with each other.  That your connection ran deeper than stupid shallow feelings like attraction.  He’s always agreed with you, always hooked a companionable arm around your neck and said you were soulmates of a new variety, no messy feelings needed.

But Will’s wedding seems to have shifted things.  Both you and Santi are in the wedding party, so it hasn’t just been the ceremony and reception.  You’ve been in each other’s orbit more than usual lately—the engagement party and joint bachelor and bachelorette parties and rehearsal dinner and post-rehearsal night at the bar…

It’s all led to this:  the dregs of the reception.  Will and his new wife have disappeared, on their way to Cabo for their honeymoon.  Frankie left hours ago to relieve the babysitter.  

You would be home too if it weren’t for Santi.  The man hasn’t let you out of his sight since the dinner service.  You’d say he was drunk, but he’s been nursing the same bottle of lukewarm beer for hours.

Not that you’re complaining.  You haven’t seen your dearest, oldest friend much since Tom died, and now he’s here:  solidly, gloriously here.  With you.  Dancing on a mostly-deserted dance floor.

That would be enough.  It’s always been enough, just being with him, but then he tightens his hold on your waist, tugs you closer to him.  Before you can even react, he’s right there—his face filling your field of vision, his big puppy-dog eyes gazing at you just before he kisses you.

And it should feel wrong, but it doesn’t.  It feels right.  It feels like something you’ve always been missing and now have.  Your dearest, oldest friend kisses you, and you kiss him back, and it’s a cliché and it’s cheesy and stupid all at once, but it’s also like the final missing piece of a puzzle falling into place and revealing the truth that’s been right in front of you since the goddamned second grade when you traded sandwiches—his peanut butter and jelly for your ham and cheese—in the school cafeteria.

Santi is the one that breaks the kiss, but he rests his forehead against yours.  He breathes out, and it fans across your face.  When you open your eyes, he’s still so close to you, and those deep brown eyes gaze back at you.

“Wanted to do that for a long time,” he whispers.

“Why’d you wait so long?” you whisper back.

He shrugs, and you feel the movement under your hand, the bunch and flex of his muscles under where you palm rests on his shoulder.  “Scared, I guess.”

“Of me?”

“Of ruining this.”  

You smile at him and say, “you’re stupid.”

He huffs out a laugh.  “You know, that’s exactly what you told me back in elementary school.  The first day we met.”

“Guess you haven’t changed much since then.”

“I have a little,” he replies.  “I’m a better kisser now.”  His hand drifts up to cup your face, and he pulls you back in for another kiss, his soft lips against yours, his tongue gently prodding at the seam of your mouth. You part your lips and thrill at the sensation of his tongue sliding against yours, tasting you, you tasting him. 

Because it shouldn’t feel the way it does.  It should feel weird.  Disjointed.  Strange.  But it’s none of those things:  kissing Santiago Garcia, your oldest, dearest friend…it feels like coming home.

[tokkiwrites]

ㅤ𔓕ㅤㅤꪆৎㅤ𓈒ㅤ THREE'S A CROWD ＼ ㅤ♰ ㅤ⊹ㅤ ︵

Santiago 'Pope' Garcia x f!reader x Francisco 'Catfish' Morales

summary: your dad befriended some nice customers from his bar. fast-forward a year, they're all you can think about.

tags: pwp honestly, threesome mfm (YEEPPEEE) dbf! Santiago & Frankie, afab!reader w she/her pronouns, age gap, pet names (lots!!), Santiago has a thing with you being 'pure', virginity loss, reader is literally horny 24/7, doms! santi and frankie, sub! reader, rougher santi and softer frankie ig, dirty talk, slapping, spit (for like a sentence), choking, hair pulling, double penetration (in the same hole), head m receiving, voyeurism, unprotected p in v (wrap your dingaling!!), masturbating in the mirror for like a bit, lmk if i missed anything!!

ㅤ↪ㅤtokki's ۫ 𐑺 𝚜𝚞ׂ𝚐𝚊𝚛 ࣭ note ˑ ⌕ ࣭ ּ ➭ ive been on an oscar isaac rush for the past few weeks, and i had to. first time writing ab a threesome...sooo. im trying to write in different ways, so if it all seems jittery, apologies!!! this has like 3.6k words. its not proofread!! I TRIED MY BEST :( enjoy !!

'i need it.' was becoming like a mantra for you now. every day, needy for touches and attention, those dirty reflections that never left your mind.

of course, you've done things with boys. well, one boy, your boyfriend, and those things being your average makeout sessions and hand jobs, nothing more. you knew what sex was, of course, but the urge to experience the rougher side of it was overflowing by the day. and you know these wishes started appearing and consuming as soon as your dad befriended two customers from the bar you help him run, Santiago and Frankie. One year ago, you saw them only three times, maybe four in the span of 3 months, but their visits were more and more frequent and well, that's how their friendship started.

At first you were skeptical, unsure of their means, but you missed seeing your dad so happy and when you got to know them you realized they were good. What mattered was your dad being less lonely.

all though, that kind of changed eight months ago when, in the dead of july, you witnessed them helping your dad building a small summerhouse in your backyard. There's nothing wrong with that. Just seeing them both sweaty, with muscles bulging and hands dirty, woke something inside of you. and the fact that you broke up with your first boyfriend ever, that you were together with since 17, didn’t quite help.

So yeah, you were happy for your dad, but hated that you had to see them almost everyday and in turn sit hours on end with soaked panties on and, like a broken record, playing fantasies in your mind of these older men doing as they please with you. and you don't know why these thoughts plagued your mind just now, at the age of 21, but it was getting in the way of every aspect of your life, these wild things making you want to live inside your fantasy world and never wake up.

Today was no different: another late night at the bar. your dad went home early to catch some sleep since tomorrow he'll have to leave for three days to help his brother, your uncle, move into his new home. That's fine. What's getting you is him assigning his friends to 'keep an eye on you' like you're some sort of child. but, somehow, you can get over that. What you can't get over is how are you going to survive three whole days being just in their presence? when your dad's here, it's different. You don't need to spend that much time in their proximity, but this? you'll have to lock yourself in your room to keep those thoughts at bay.

you we're getting lost within your mind again.

what if you were to tell them about these thoughts? not that they're about them, just... you know, boy advice?

that's insane. and stupid.

would they accept should you propose you three entangled in some...activities? they'd for sure disagree- you were their friend's daughter, and whilst they didn't know you for that long it for sure didn't sound right.

what if they agree, though? one night. one night for all of your dreams to become reality..but you couldn't live after that knowing what you'd be missing forever. they'd leave after. what if you'd beg for them to stay, to have them do things even more carnal to you? if you begged maybe and gave your freedom to them.

These kinds of thoughts cloud your mind every day, and now, they are making you forget about the real world, where you were supposed to serve Santiago a glass of whiskey. as the sound of a low chuckle pulls you out of your trance, you feel liquid pooling around your palm that was settled on the bar. and when it finally awakes you, your eyes meet him again. your heart jolts, and it gets you lightheaded again.

"Oh, I'm- god, I'm so sorry Mr.Garcia...I don't know what happenedㅡ" You panic, wiping hurriedly the bar, prompting yet another laugh from the man. " 's fine, doll, don't worry. all though... your dad might turn into the reincarnation of Lucifer if he sees how much whiskey you wasted." he leans over for some tissues, wanting to help you.

"No, it's fine, I'll do it-" you smile shyly, placing your hand on top of his to stop him from moving, this in turn made him tilt his head up only a little, which awarded him with a quick glance at your barely exposed cleavage.

'untouched.' he thought to himself.

"I won't say anything if you don't." your ears pick up his voice, and for a moment, you forgot about what he was talking about. "Oh, yeah, I'm not gonna...say anything." Your lips curl into a shy smile. " Hurry and clean this up. I'm gonna take you home since you gotta close anyway."

oh, lord.

"no, that's fine. I can walk-"

"said I'll take you home." you breathe out a quiet 'oh, my god' because you're sure you've just had an orgasm from his voice only.

"See, I know you have manners ‘cause your dad taught you to listen to your elders, seems I just gotta get a little stern with you, huh?" you shake your head, not sure what to make of what he just said, but you finish up cleaning as the door opens to reveal Frankie. "why're you still here, man?" he inquired as he took off his baseball cap to arrange his perfectly curly hair better.

you can't possibly be serious.

"on duty." he laughs and points towards you. "Ah."

"You know... my dad hasn't left yet, so you're not 'on duty' as far as I know. Also, he said to keep an eye on me. Not be my bodyguards!" You try to scold them in a way. At the end of the day, you are an adult, right? "Easy miss." Frankie puts his hands up."I just arrived.”

"Yeah, well I am leaving. Alone! So please-" you move your hands as a signal for them to leave. "Excuse us for ever bothering you, miss. May we at least stay here until you close?” Santiago sarcastically banters. "I guess.." You shrug, finishing washing your hands and putting the glasses away.

you hate how much you like them. and how much you want them to ravage you. if possible, you'd let them both take you right there on the bar counter, whilst potential passers-by saw you get fucked into oblivion.

9AM, your dad left, and you can't seem to fall back asleep. the bar will be closed for these these days, so you have nothing to do except steep into your own boredom. You decide to make yourself a cup of coffee and grab a book from the shelf. With your coffee in hand, you head out to the backyard, where you settle into a comfortable chair. As you sip your coffee and immerse yourself in the pages of the book, you find solace in the gentle breeze and the sounds of nature around you, embracing the quiet moments of the morning.

this works for a while, but there's an inexplicable itch you want to scratch. with a loud whine that scares some little birds away, you head back inside to find other things to do. "Please, i can't keep on thinking about them. What is wrong with me?" You scream whisper at yourself whilst looking in the mirror places in your hallway, "like..genuinely!"

as you stare a bit more into the mirror, your hands make their way up your torso and to your breasts, nipping at your lower lip as you can't seem to ignore the warmth from between your thighs. you start imagining both of them having their way with you, forcing you to watch yourself in the mirror as they pumped your holes full of their come. touching yourself more, light fingers make their way under the shorts you were wearing, finally catching a feel of how wet you are. you moan, knees buckling as you picture both men marking you as theirs in all ways. "p-please.. Santi, Frankieㅡ"

"my, what do we have here, huh?" your eyes open wide, and still in your pants and palm still over your sensitive nipple, as two other reflections in the mirror stare back at you. "Mr.Garcia, Mr.Moralesㅡ"

"Cut the shit, doll. I think we're way past that." he motions loosely towards the indecent position you were in. "You're lucky it was us and not your dad. '' Frankie states. "I'm so sorry, I don't even..I can'tㅡ" you stutter and turn around slowly to face them, arms now falling to your sides.

"You want us?" Frankie asks you in the most serious tone you've heard him. "I- what? Huh?" you're left speechless by this sudden interrogation.

"Do you want us to fuck you, doll?" Santiago reiterated. But you stayed quiet, head low, too embarrassed to admit your true intentions. was it wrong? certainly. but was it the only thing you've dreamed about since you first saw them? Of course.

"Why don't you answer? You act like a little slut and yetㅡ" He steps closer and Frankie soon follows. "You're too shy all of a sudden? We were the ones who walked in on you, you know? touching yourself in front of the mirror like a dirty whore, huh? what would your dad say, baby?" he taunts you whilst Frankie reaches his strong grip and tilts your head up to look them in the eyes. "You didn't answer the question, sweet girl."

it takes a few seconds, but you muster up a hushed 'yes', causing them to smirk. "Show us, baby. C'mon, tell us how bad you want it." Dizzy and drunk on arousal, you succumbed to their touch, kneeling at their feet and looking up, pleading with tearful eyes in a silent entreaty to do as they please with you. but they don't budge. They wait patiently for you to show them how desperate you can get. it all overflows you, the cold floor in contact with your knees, their scent, your rugged breaths. "Please, I want- need it. I need you...so bad. need you toㅡ use me" you rub your thighs together. "Please..?"

"for how long, baby, hm? since we first met? 'cause i know I've wanted to bend you over from the first moment I laid my eyes on the pretty thing you are." Frankie admits. " knew you had nothing else in this pretty head of yours, sweetheart. " Santiago laughs as he shoves your head lightly with his finger, causing you to whimper. "just wanna be fucked stupid, right? be our stupid, little fuck doll? that what you want?" and you nod in response, it takes you all of your power to not cry from how bad you want to feel them right now. "Ever done something like this?" and you shake your head no. "Shit. You poor little thing." he was right about you. He can feel his dick twitching at the thought of having you all splayed out, so innocent and untouched.

"We'll take care of you. But...we can't promise to be too gentle. All though I don't think “gentle” is what you want." Your eyes glimmer, and your head spins. Did you hear that right? Is this really happening, or are you having the most beautiful dream, and when you wake up, you'll be sorrowful for days?

They instruct you to get undressed, clothes falling to the floor as they force you to crawl onto the couch all whilst they watch, fully clothed. getting closer to you, their calloused hands explore each part of your warm body as trails of kisses leave you hanging onto them. "gonna ruin you, baby, you know that, yeah?" of course you know. you've been yearning for this moment for almost a year.

they proceed to get naked, Santiago positioning himself in front of you and Frankie a little to your side. You couldn't believe it. This was so much more than you imagined; they were both long and girthy, with Frankie being a little more veiny than Santiagoㅡ a sight that made you drool. this will forever be imprinted into your brain.

"You look like a dumb puppy staring like that." Frankie snorts. "Haven't seen a cock before?" he's getting cockier with his remarks, as he urges you to respond. "Yes, but.. n-ot soㅡ big.." your cheeks grow red as you see Santiago's dick jump from your words. "Stroking my ego like that baby... how 'bout you stroke my cock instead, hm? can you do that for me?" anything. you were willing to do it all for them, make them so proud, they'd never want to leave.

your shaky hands wrap, barely, around both their lengths, as you stare up at them whilst standing straight so your boobs are on full display for them to eat up with their hungry eyes. you do it slow, unsure if you're doing it good, licking some of the precum from their slits from time to time, swirling your tongue around eachㅡ putting on a show. "You've done your homework, huh? Do it a little too well for a virgin."

"c'mon, hands and knees, I wanna fuck this pretty mouth of yours." Santiago pushes you back as Frankie strokes himself. "Pretty thing" he says as two digits trail down your back and help you position yourself better onto the couch. Frankie finally places himself behind you, teasingly playing with your folds, letting out a soft 'fuck' whilst feeling how wet you were. "Stretched yourself out for use before we came, right, sweet girl? You want me to help you out a little moreㅡ?"

"Noㅡ! Please.." you eagerly interrupt. "You cockslut. Haven't had an eager little thing like you since I was in college." He laughs as he positions his length in line with your hot entrance, leaving kisses down your back he slips inside slowly, and you choke out a cry, eyes brimming with tears as a sting pangs through your whole body. "sh, sh..I know, baby. I know." Whispering gently, Santiago pulls himself down and cups your face, leaning in to kiss you. As your lips finally met, time stood still, the world faded away, and all that remained was the electrifying sensation of something within you igniting. It was a moment painted with the hues of passion and longing, a symphony of emotions echoing through your soul.

He breaks the kiss and smiles down at you as the pain slowly fades away and is replaced by pure pleasure. pulling away, he levels himself and taps on your chin for you to open your mouth. Santiago hisses, tugging harder at your hair as a response to your warm tongue enveloping the tip of his dick. "shit, baby, open up for meㅡ thaat's it. good girl."

shuddering in anticipation, you part your lips further, allowing him to push deeper inside. you were already a mess- drool dripping down your chin as he fucked your mouth like there was no tomorrow, tears that stained your cheeks as he pushed your head lower; muffled moans, how you were gagging around his length, pure music for both of them to listen to.

"look so pretty, baby, mouth stuffed with cock.." you stare up at him through wet lashes as he lands a slap to your right cheek.

At your other end, Frankie was cautiously moving back and forth, not wanting to succumb to the tightness of your wet cunt that almost sent him over the edge just as he put the tip in. "so fuckin' tight, baby. fuuck-" he groans as he hits a few hard strokes, your back arching against him and fingers digging into Santiago's hips. "you hear that?" Frankie asks, moving himself deep into your hot core, letting you catch the lewd and wet noises your cunt made wrapped around him. "she's so wet for us, isn't she? poor pussy.." you pathetically whine, as Santiago pulls your head back by your hair, making you stare straight into his darkened eyes. "don't go shy on us now, doll." he laughs, delivering another sharp slap to your already heated cheek. "you wanted to be a little slut and we're gonna treat you like one, soㅡ" he tuts, thrusting into your throat before he continues, "so, really, you should thank us." Santiago pulls away, leaving your needy mouth wide open, as if asking for his shaft in a desperate plea. Frankie firmly places his rough palms onto your ass before taking his length out and you cry at the sudden lack of them inside of you. "Go ahead," he adds. "Thank us, baby, c'mon."

you lick your lips, feeling yourself dripping down onto the mattress under you, too cock drunk and embarrassed to say anything. Santiago sighs, giving your cheek a few light slaps as his other palm slides down to wrap around your throat. you gasp, the feeling so new yet it felt like something you'd been missing for so long. "i didn't take you as the ungrateful type, little angel." he coos, as Frankie reaches under to cup your breasts into his hands. "are you an ungrateful little whore?" taunting you. " 'm n-ot.." you gasp, the lack of blood flow to your brain keeping you on the edge. "you're sure acting like one." the one at the forefront proceeds, running the tip of his leaking length along your puffy lips. "and here we were..-" he stops to slap it onto your left cheek "ready to reward you, hm?" they look at each other and chuckle, as if they weren't mocking you and the pitiful mess you were. "please, I'm-" you swallow. "I'm sorry, please. Thank you so muchㅡ ! just- please, please..."

"you sweet thing." Santiago intoned "sweet filthy thing."

"I say we fuck her like she wants us to." Frankie hums from behind you, his cock rubbing against your leaking entrance. "that's what you want, right baby? want us both inside your little pussy. stretch her out and ruin you for others.." and you whimper as your cunt pulses around nothing. "Yeah, she likes that. dirty fucking girl." It was raw and intense— how their command over you ignited an unyielding desire to please them, to make them proud.

they both pull away, and in no time, your body is squished between theirs, strong arms holding you down as if you're to run away. Santiago harshly cups your face, forcing your mouth open; He gathers some spit into his mouth, for him to promptly spit it down onto your tongue. He watches proudly as you swallow it all, his thumb running across your bottom lip. Frankie was biting your shoulder, sucking at your sensitive skin as he held you by your throat in a way that's sure to leave marks.

"lift your hips for us." Santiago commands, and you do as you're told. He tangles his hand around in your hair as his other one reaches down to his cock, aligning it with your entrance. He eases in, making you throw your head back onto Frankie, his fingers now massaging your sensitive clit. "Fuckingㅡ look at her, swallowing me in one go. pretty girl.." he coos, pulling your head back by the hair to face him. From behind you, Frankie slowly lifts you up with his knees and slips inside of you, both men moaning into your ears. Tears slip past your eyes again and you cry from the pain and pleasure as your mouth falls open, unsure if you're still conscious or not. "feels good, baby? us splitting you open right here where anyone from the street can see... you like that?" Frankie was right, all it took was for a taller person to stare a bit over the fence and they'd have front row seats at this show.

" 'course she does. little whores like her get off to that. bet she'd let us fuck her in front of her dad. let him see the slut his daughter actually is." With that, Santiago finally starts to move, his eyes rolling back as Frankie pushes down onto your lower belly, as he moves his hips. "So fucking deep, shitㅡ feel that?" he laughs "want us to come this deep, huh? have you all filled up till you can't hold anything inside of you.."

"p-pleaseㅡ"

"i could fuck this tight cunt forever, god." the other in front of you grunts, the hand from your hair now focused on your nipples and one placed firmly onto your hips. Frankie had one hand on your stomach and one onto your face, two of his fingers stretching your mouth open. You let yourself be taken over by them. it felt like you were flying so high and intoxicated by them, you weren't sure how you'd recover.

"thank you, thank youㅡ" you babble incoherently.

Santiago quickened his pace, causing Frankie to do the same, and with a few more strokes, they both bury themselves deep inside your core, white warm ropes painting your velvety walls. The sudden warmth and full feeling sends you completely over the edge, having you shake and pulse around them as you reach your orgasm.

you all sit there, them deep inside of you, you between them, breathing heavily as they planted kisses upon your skin. After you came down, you realized what happened, and worse, that it was over, a thought which made you let out a pathetic sob and clench around them out of desperation. "easy girl, we still have two days left." Frankie breaks the silence. "It was you who said you wanted us to use you, no? you who wanted to be our cum doll forever.." Santiago follows.

You're right where you want to be.

[mylittledelulucorner]

Happy Birthday!!!

Happy birthday to one of my favourite actors ever. I just love this man and his craft. I don’t have a lot to contribute to our fandom so enjoy these silly little birthday posts that I made.

Happy birthday to him! May this day and year be filled with love, joy, great health and happiness. More adventures and happy memories.

Can’t wait to see him on our screens again!

[bennysmiller]

Sorry I can’t hang, I’m going to be looking at this gif for 30 hours straight. Have fun tho.

[my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction]

Tit For Tat

Santiago Pope Garcia x afab!Reader • Rating: 18+ pals Masterlist• ao3• want to be tagged? | request info • Kinktober 2024 Masterlist • Kinktober 2023 Masterlist • Day 15: Against a Wall

Summary: You and Santi sneak off.

A/N: This was meant to be for kinktober 2023 (I'm so sorry). A massive thank you to @thexsanctuaryx for saving my butt yet again and beating.

Warnings: oral sex (m!receiving), please let me know if I have missed a warning!

Word Count: 460

Santi moans loudly, his head thrown back, his back pressed against the wall. His jeans are down by his thighs from where you tugged them, low and nearly at the knee. There’s the beginning hint of one of his surgery scars just peeking out at the edge of the material. 

His unbuckled belt taps rhythmically against the fly as you bob your head, sucking him as deep into your mouth as you can.

You jerk him in time with your mouth, caressing the inches you can swallow down while you lightly knead and squeeze his heavy balls. 

“Baby,” he groans, biting his lip as he bucks weakly into the heat of your mouth. “Please, I’m gonna…” He sucks in a deep breath as you moan lightly, the sound reverberating along his skin. 

He wants to hold off, wants to let you play with him as long as you wish, forever if you wanted. God, he would do anything you wanted. 

He knows he’s meant to be keeping vaguely quiet. The walls aren’t that thin and pretty much everyone is in the garden outside, but even so, he’s getting dangerously close to too loud. But he just can’t help himself, can’t gather together enough brain cells that haven't been overloaded by the feeling of your lips and tongue along his cock to care. 

His balls tighten, drawing up as his length pulses and grows impossibly harder. 

“Gonna come…” He whines, his breath catching in his throat. 

He’s not used to this, not used to being given things so completely. Not used to being the one that’s pressed against surfaces and pampered with pleasure. 

Not used to someone not expecting anything in return. 

But, oh boy, how he was going to return it. 

He was going to get you down completely flat on your back on the floor with his head between your legs and make you come and come and come and-

He cries out softly, bucks weakly as his orgasm floods his veins and he spurts hot, thick cum into your eager mouth. 

You moan around him, swallowing eagerly as he shivers and shakes. Only pulling back as he sighs and slumps forward ever so slightly. 

You’re grinning up at him when he looks at you. 

“You trying to let everyone know you’re getting your dick sucked?” You tease and he scoffs, grinning.

“Maybe.” He shrugs, still breathing deeply. “Was I that bad?” 

You shake your head. “There’s still some plausible deniability.” 

He snorts, slowly sinking down onto the floor next to you. His heart warms when you reach out to help him. “Yeah, well, there won’t be.” 

“What?”  He grabs you, making you chuckle as he pulls you into a searing kiss. “‘Cause I’m about to make you scream.”

Thank you for reading!

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