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dolly-on-the-dotted-line · 2 years

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Laredo, Summer, Age 27: Cousin Stella’s Wedding

Javi's been AWOL for nearly twelve months. Coming home for a family wedding isn’t exactly fun for the town runaway.

Rating: 18+

Warnings: General Angst, Smut, Drinking

A/N: Series debut of Grumpy Javi and also Serious Adult Javi. There’s a big time jump between the last main chapter and this one, the important events of which (Javi and Lorraine's engagement, leaving her at the altar, etc) will be filled in throughout the Interludes for Changes. More of those coming up shortly. A lot can happen in three years, and it certainly has. The tone of this chapter is quite different to the rest so far, so I hope I hit it right.

Laredo, Summer, Age 27: Cousin Stella's Wedding

Chucho is full of nervous energy. It’s the best of him, this excitement, fed entirely by the warm potential of being around the people he loves and seeing them happy.

For that reason alone, a family wedding is his idea of Shangri-La, and he’s alight with the joy of it; having everyone in one place, celebrating something as simple as being in love and promising to stick with it for as long as you can manage. It makes your heart ache, how much happiness he derives from that of others, how easily that selfless part of his nature comes to the fore and, in turn, has just become an extension of himself.

It’s for that very reason his energy is nervous at all.

Family or not, today’s ceremony is also the first since his son’s own ill-fated wedding day, or lack thereof. While Chucho Peña doesn’t care for canards or local chit-chat, he does care deeply for Javier. And it had been a rough twelve months for the prodigal son.

Javi’s full of nervous energy too, but a completely different kind. His is the self-destructive stuff, that starts a fight in a bar or a break-up if someone asks the wrong thing at the wrong time. Where Chucho is on edge, Javi is indignant, and for every one of his Father’s concerned glances, gentle pats, and unanswered observations about the weather, Javi’s dishing from an unending stockpile of grunts, grumbles, and deafening silences.

Between the two of them, and with the addition of your own watchful eye, the house is practically thrumming with anticipation, all three of you sitting on the cusp of an explosion, patiently waiting for the pin to be pulled.

You and Pa had been amazed and concerned in equal measure when Javi announced he’d be coming back for the ceremony. You had mentioned it in passing during your monthly phone call, a toe in the water, a gentle reminder that the world was still turning back in Laredo, but intended as nothing more than that.

The speed of his turnaround had been astonishing, and to your complete surprise, he was crossing state lines for home not two days later. He’d rolled up, bag in hand and best suit in tow, and sat down for Saturday night dinner as if nothing had changed.

Except it had. No one had seen him for nearly a year.

The three of you knew he couldn’t stay away forever, but the timing of it all seemed like it was going to be a sink-or-swim situation - a prediction that had been making itself increasingly apparent since the morning began.

In lieu of his objectively pleasant homecoming last night, he’d been in a foul mood from the moment he woke up, flip-flopping between abject silence and resentful commentary, before eventually settling for a variety of murmurs and raised eyebrows in response to anyone that dared talk to him directly. Breakfast had been a painful face-off as the three of you scratched forks, poured coffee, and made three-way eye contact that said everything any of you needed to.

By the time he stalked off to get ready, the tension in the room was unbearable.

Chucho let out a nervous laugh when he heard the bedroom door close upstairs, finally allowing himself to speak freely for the first time this morning without the fear of instigating nuclear warfare in his own kitchen.

“Ay, Niña, it’s going to be a long day.”

“These cursed wedding breakfasts are becoming a tradition of ours, eh Pa?”

“Apparently so.”

“I wondered when the bad mood would hit, I just didn’t expect it to be daybreak. I knew last night had gone too well.”

Chucho had revelled in having his little family back together again, if only for a few days.

You’d only been back for a day or two before Javi arrived, also making the trip especially for Stella’s big day, and not planning to stay longer than you needed to. But you’d been almost as absent as him this year, and having you back in Peña territory was the only excuse Chucho needed to make a fuss. The food was en-masse, the ice tea cold, and the conversation golden as you spent two dutiful evenings catching your father up on every detail of your life in New York (with a notably discreet summary of your work there).

But as the two of you sat out on the porch watching the summer sun go down, you both felt the loss of your other favourite person. Javier had always been the glue holding the constituent parts of your life together, and it was more than evident when he wasn’t there. Especially in the one place you always expected to find him.

Come Sunday, with Javier’s jacket restored on the hook, having all three of you back around the table in the time-tested kitchen Javier’s grandfather had built was everything Chucho could have wished for. As you ate, drank, sat, and talked, the sense of normality was immense, rolling over all of you in waves of sincere affection and unavoidable familiarity. You clung to one another in the only way you knew how.

And, if a little sheepish, Javi had been good, great even. The space for the unfamiliar diffidence you’d expect after such a long period of absence was ushered out at Chucho’s command, refused at the door. He’d hovered for a second, clearly considering bolting, but the moment he found himself clasped tightly in his father’s arms he gave it all up.

For one simple evening, everything was fine. The shock of seeing him didn't even register, the emotional no-mans-land of the past three years made irrelevant for just a moment as you sat in the incomparable aura of his company.

For Javi, it was like he had been caught off guard, as if he'd forgotten he was supposed to be hating it and didn't want to be here.

For five minutes he had forgotten why it was so hard to be home. But by this morning, having sobered distinctly in the cold light of day, he had certainly remembered.

“It’s too soon,” he coos, bringing you back to the moment as he clatters the dishes in the sink and stares out listlessly into the backyard. “Far too soon. In this house, he’s safe. He knows that. That’s what we got last night. But out there… and a wedding, no less. I hope he knows what he’s doing.”

Your father was right. It was too soon. You both knew it and, from the look of it, so did Javi. The sliver of carefree enjoyment you’d seen of him last night had been folded up and packed away, likely the moment his head had hit the pillow and he had the chance to think. It was all too familiar; the process, the place, even the occasion itself. Too close to home in the most literal sense.

It had only been a year, give or take a few weeks, since he was standing here sweating about his own big day.

The sight of him storming into this kitchen, bleary-eyed and running riot - now that was a memory that still plagued you when you couldn’t sleep at night. And if you could remember it, clear as a bell, you could only imagine what the anamnesis is like for him.

If the last time you’d been home involved making the most devastating decision of your adult life, you likely wouldn’t be too keen on being back, either. Stepping out on your fiancée was one thing, but living the rest of your marriage knowing the whole thing was based on a half-truth was another challenge entirely.

You all know he chose right. By the time the midday ceremony had rolled around, there was no more talk of a shotgun than the one that would supposedly be pointed at Javi by Lorraine’s father if he ever came back to town. Pellets in his backside or not, and knowing the other side of the story, the whole ordeal was enough to see Javi two feet into his future at the DEA, with Lorraine’s distaste for the profession no longer a factor.

He’d left for DC full-time the very next day, and hadn’t been back since as far as the rest of the town was concerned. Christmas had been quiet without him. Pa had been lonelier than usual this year.

But, despite it all, despite the fact that no one who knew the half of it would have thought anything less of him if he’d stayed right where he was, he was here instead. Shitty attitude aside, he was here.

“Do you think he has something to prove?” you can’t help but ask, joining Pop at the window to start drying the dishes.

“Doesn’t he always?” He laughs, unable to help the affection creeping through. “By the end of tomorrow, he’ll either be homesick, or good as gone. He’s never been one for halves.”

“I don’t know which one I’m rooting for,” you sigh, addressing the statement more to yourself than to him.

When you head upstairs to finish getting ready you find Javi sitting on the edge of your bed, finally in his suit and tie.

If there was one thing he had going for him this year, it’s that he looks as good as ever. His hair is longer, rugged, but combed back into what you assume must be his usual style for work, miles away from his annual summertime curls. Even sitting as he is, he holds himself firmly, upright, with the air of someone who wants to be listened to and makes damn sure it happens.

Any sign of boyish charm has been replaced with handsome professionalism, three nightly double whiskeys, and something deeper and darker that's both bordering sexy and edging on dangerous. Heartbreak didn’t suit him, but adulthood did, and while you feel the strong nostalgic pull for the boy you once knew, you were undeniably interested in the man sitting in front of you. He’s different. It’s gorgeous.

You hover in the doorway and take in the sight of him, shirtsleeves rolled roughly to the elbow, suit trousers hitching up to reveal the pattern at the top of his socks. His favourite pair.

“I’m surprised those don’t have holes in, you know,” you say, risking the comedic lilt in your tone as you nod down to his feet.

“They do,” he huffs back, revealing the exposed skin at his heel. “I’m hoping they’re still lucky.”

Deciding the mood is better than expected, and that he’s had all morning to wallow, you cross the threshold into the room and decide business as usual is the best approach. Just because things are different now doesn’t mean the same methods won’t apply, and he'd always responded well to you refusing to give a shit.

You pull the dress you’d chosen from its place in your closet and, without even having to ask, hear the familiar sound of him turning around to avert his gaze as you get dressed. You smile softly at the gesture. He could have assumed, could have watched as you took one thing off and replaced it with another. You don’t think you’d have stopped him if he’d kept his eyes forward- at this point, it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before. But this, him watching his mark and respecting your space, was more familiar than anything; one of a hundred comforting rituals that had taken shape in this house and in this room. He hadn’t tried his luck then, and he certainly wasn’t going to now. That little fragment was still sacred.

Despite the familiarity of it, when you drop your bathrobe you wonder if the tension in the small space feels the same to him as it does for you: thick, almost syrupy, as if everything has slowed just a little.

Outside of the conversation over dinner last night, you hadn’t really said a word directly to one another. Usually, when you both came back here, there was a moment of reconciliation, a brief interaction where you ever-so-quickly got reacquainted and then proceeded to pick up exactly where you left off.

This time, in spite of being in the same place, that hadn’t happened yet. Everything was blurry around the edges, the usual intimacy of you falling into one another stunted, lacking. But, despite the disruption, you still felt it; something like magnetism was trying to bring everything back into place, the same way it always did when the two of you were side by side. It wasn't something you could fight.

Knowing you’re finished, he swings his legs back around to resume his original position and runs his eyes over you with no discernible reaction. The only part that gives anything away is the speed at which they travel. He takes his time, and you feel the way his gaze drags over you, absorbing all the constituent parts. You’re different too, you suppose. It’s been a long time since he’s let himself look at you.

“Five minutes, kids!” yells Chucho from downstairs, and you see patently the way Javi snaps out of it, righting his state of mind, resolving to resume his original loathing for this day that he had already decided he would not enjoy at all. If he’d been on the cusp of something, it was gone now.

Oh well, you think to yourself, and move to rummage under your bed for the shoebox containing your heels.

Bad attitude decidedly back in place after its brief hiatus, Javi returns to being no help at all, remaining in place on the edge of the mattress as you scoop your arm around the dead space on either side of his legs to no avail.

His mood swings back in the day had been few and far between, but when they came about, they were infamous. Today was no exception. His lashing out had come in just about every form since morning coffee was served, and you knew he was currently settling on a sweet spot between ‘unhelpful’ and ‘difficult’. Previous iterations today had included refusing to get dressed, taking over an hour in the shower, and pouring himself a neat whiskey at 7:30am. As you reach further under the bed to finally grab hold of what you hope is the required box, you give up entirely when it’s kicked out of your grasp with the back of Javi’s foot, sending it sailing out of reach entirely, hand in hand with an unapologetically sour look from the rest of the man attached.

“Bastard,” you exhale under your breath, forfeiting the endeavour entirely as you sit back on your haunches and look up at him from your position on the floor.

Managing to catch the eye that’s reluctant to meet yours after his deliberately childish movements, you realise he’s entering the penultimate stage of his emotional process: surly. It’s the only word for when he’s like this. Standing from the bed, he assumes the standard position, hands glued to his hips, stance wide, one palm to his forehead, the other patting aggressively for another cigarette that he knew he didn’t have.

“Just when I thought you were coming around,” you mutter to yourself.

“Frank’s here!” Chucho calls, again, this time from the stairs.

“Fuck,” grumbles Javi, rubbing the palms of his hands over his face for the umpteenth time that morning, as if he can erase himself from existence.

Seeing him like this, unsettled, out of touch, makes you aware of something so confounding that even you were struggling to get your head around it: home doesn't feel the same for him anymore. This sacred place that could do no harm was suddenly an emotional death trap, teeming with beady-eyed acquaintances and a trail of tedious questions a mile long about where he’s been and why he left. Deep down, he’s still the same person he always was, the golden boy with a heart to match, but it’s tarnished for him now, that title. The glue trap snags another unwitting victim, and you know he’s felt nothing less than a bug under a lense since he set foot on the tarmac.

“Babies, come on!” Chucho calls again, and Javi is pacing the small bedroom, taking off his suit jacket and swinging it under his arm, running his hands through his hair and then frustratedly fixing it.

“Fucking fuck.”

Standing in your childhood bedroom, he looks both too big and too small. Overgrown but malnourished. The place itself fits him just fine, but it’s like he’s not the same shape anymore. He’s harder, prickly, more of a man now than he’s ever been. It must sting, like coming to find your favourite clothes are no longer your size.

You all knew it was going to take some work to carve him right again, heal the wounds, rub the salt. But he won’t stay long enough for that, at least not right now, and in the meantime, the experience was akin to trapping a tiger. Home would be there for him whenever he was ready for it, but that time wasn’t now.

Not only that, you contemplate, but he's tired. You can see it in the way he holds himself, as if he's permanently waiting for a quiet moment to turn his back and fold in half. Work has been gearing up big time, and as much as he tries to keep things light over the phone, normally by saying nothing much as all, there's only so much you can read in the news and not let your mind wander. The DEA might be firm-footed, but anyone can see it's been shaken by the way things are escalating, and it was starting to show on their people, too.

“Babies,” Chucho announces, now standing at the top of the landing, framed by your doorway. “We need to go. The car’s running and Frank is waiting-”

“-Alright, Dad,” snaps Javi, voice roaring in contrast to his previous silence. “We heard you the first fucking time.”

Chucho’s head snaps up immediately, first with a look of shock, and then quickly replaced with a furrowed brow of concern. He’s not hurt, he knew this was coming today. You all did. Plus, Chucho Peña wasn’t one ruffled so easily by something so simple as a harsh word from his son.

Shooting Javi a scowl before you can catch it, one that says ‘you don’t speak for me’, you point him a finger of warning before turning to your father. “It’s okay, Pa. I’ll drive us. We’ll meet you at the church.”

Chucho looks at you deeply, reminding you of where Javi gets his ability to say a hundred things with a single glance. This one is pleading let’s just hold this together as best we can. He gives one parting nod in Javi’s direction that goes entirely unnoticed and heads back down the stairs without another word.

When you hear the back door slam and the engine of Frank’s car start, the two of you are left alone, truly alone, for the first time in over a year.

“Well done,” you sigh, quickly making haste to finally gather your shoes from the other side of the room, and then reaching up to the top of your dresser to retrieve your purse from where you’d stashed it after last time. The last wedding you’d been home for.

In the process Javi catches your hand in his, enveloping it, and easily reaches over you with the other to grab the clutch and pass it down to you, presenting it on a flat palm. His thumb runs along the crest of your knuckles, worrying the bruises and split skin that hadn't managed to heal in time for your trip back.

“What kind of business have they got you up to at that distillery then, hm?” he asks, his tone still sour, his concern riling it even further.

“Manual labouring, heavy lifting. You know the drill.”

You can barely look up at him, standing so close. You hadn’t seen this much of him for a long time. The knowledge that you haven’t had a sincere conversation since his wedding day suddenly feels incredibly relevant, weighing heavily on your ability to just speak to him. He was the last person on earth you expected to find yourself tongue-tied around, but you couldn’t get the words out now even if you wanted to.

Instead of trying to talk, you focus on needlessly smoothing out his tie, retying the already perfect knot in some kind of attempt to keep him in your space. In spite of his ruffled energy, he was always immaculately dressed when the moment called for it, and this occasion was no exception. The facade went up in more ways than one, but if you stood just close enough, the cracks still shone through: the hole in his sock, the misplaced curl that would never lay flat.

This is the second most difficult thing he’s ever done, you recon, coming back to a place that had turned its back on him, and had forced him to do the same. Being here wasn’t quite an act of redemption, but you had a feeling it was the start of something not so far from it. He didn’t know when to quit, but when it came to this place, neither did you.

He’s here for a reason, you can’t help but contemplate, refusing to finish the rest of the consideration. Refusing to question if the reason, for once, might just be you.

Using the smallest movement possible, he brings the back of his hand to brush up against you, catching the fabric of your dress between his knuckles and worrying the slinky fabric between them satisfyingly.

His movements are a natural conduit for everything he’s feeling, they always have been. While you might wear your emotions plain on your face with him, everything he wants to say comes from his movements: the way he lays his hands or taps his feet or keeps his distance. The closeness of his frame is telling you just that. His inability to stay less than five feet away from you all day, despite his shit attitude, is everything you need to know. He’s at war in his own head, and you take comfort in the fact he’s struggling against his temper simply by standing so close to you.

He’s on the cusp of breaking through, teetering on the edge of the final stage of his process, and as he moves into your space for a second you think he might have tipped over, out the other side of his emotional grievance and back to being a normal, functioning human being. Acceptance was always his final step. And then he’d talk.

But when he glances down at his watch and sees the time, it’s all for nought. Instead of letting you in, he huffs in frustration and pulls himself sternly from the viscid traction between the two of you.

“Let’s just go.”

While he stops briefly in the kitchen to check himself in the mirror at the door, you rest yourself on the back of the kitchen chair and just watch him. He might be all restless energy and pent-up emotions but, beneath all of that, it’s just deep, deep, sadness. A sadness he doesn’t know where to put when he’s in the one place that usually keeps it at bay.

“What are you staring at?” he grouses when he catches you looking, but his tone is softer than before. His energy for conflict was burning out.

“You. You look hot as fuck, Javier,” you state plainly.

He hesitates but doesn’t laugh, instead throwing the keys to the truck at you across the kitchen, landing them square in your chest with a thump.

“Let’s just get this fucking over with,” he mutters as he stalks out of the kitchen.

You flip him off in return as you follow him out to start the engine.

Chucho was right, it was going to be a long day.

“So this partner of yours,” he asks eventually after a few moments of stagnant silence, “he’s not coming?”

“To the wedding? No,” you scoff, imagining the look on Jack Daniel’s face if you asked him to be your plus one for anything related to your personal life. “He’s on a date tonight, actually. Always on a date, the dirty dog.”

“And how often do you go on dates these days?”

Surprised by his chosen topic, you risk a steady glance at him in the passenger seat. His body language is still all over the place, non-commital in his reluctance to stay any further away from you than he has to, but refusing to give in so easily.

“I haven’t exactly had time for dates lately. Work’s been very busy. I’ve been promoted, again.”

No reply. He instinctively pats down his jacket to pull out a cigarette only to be reminded, once again, that there are none in his best suit. To avoid any further conflict, you reach over to hit the glove compartment with your fist, and he lurches forward when it opens and reveals the pack of straights, immediately taking one in hand and putting it between his lips.

“In case you felt like asking how I’ve been doing,” you add, with a defined full-stop at the end.

He still doesn’t answer, this time for a different reason, instead opting for sliding his aviators up his nose and staring out of the open window, puffing away. You consider just how close the next ten minutes are going to feel to standing in wet concrete. You decide to stir the pot regardless.

“I can understand being angry at the world, but if you’re just going to be angry at me too, what was the point in coming?”

He looks across at you then, opening just a crack, taking half a step out of his unending misery. You knew that would hit the spot, playing the ‘come on, it’s me’ card. It’s not one you’d had the chance to use in a while, the exceptional nature of your friendship having lost its special touch in the wake of, well, everything.

“I’m not angry at you,” he grumbles, sincere in his delivery but lacking in enthusiasm. “I’m never angry at you. I’m sorry. I know I’ve been-,”

“Horrible? Yeah, pretty much Jav.” You can’t help but jump at the chance to fill in the gap, immediately regretting it when you see him close right back up, lean out of the window and attempt to disappear in the cloud of smoke.

Reaching the end of your patience with his up and down attitude, you risk the words that are on the tip of your tongue.

“I know it’s hard being here. I know, okay, more than anyone what it’s like to come back here and get looked at that way. But I’m not your enemy, especially not in this situation. And especially not when I got hurt too.”

That last sentence stings a little when you hear the emotion in your own voice. It’s the first time you’ve acknowledged yourself as part of the fallout, or as anything to do with Javi at all for the past year.

“At least do me the courtesy of acting like I’m on your side.”

Speaking to him like this feels foreign, alien even. You’ve never had to be so guarded with the way you talk, so aware of where the words are going to land and how he’s going to react. Things hadn’t exactly been bad between the two of you. It would never be as simple as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or ‘fine’. But there was a lot that had gone unsaid since last spring, and before that still.

He had, at times, made the effort to carry on as painlessly as possible after the engagement, but the rift had been there from the moment that phone call happened. Eventually, you guessed, he took your silence as needing time to yourself, and he wasn’t entirely wrong. Never in your life had you found yourself in a situation where the one person you always turned to was exactly who you were trying to avoid.

But after the wedding day, you definitely felt like the roles had been reversed somehow. It was you walking on eggshells now, along with everyone else. You understood he needed time to lick his wounds, but twelve months passed with the blink of an eye and you were still right where he left you. You weren’t the one that left that altar empty, but you’d be lying if you said it didn’t feel as though you were punished for it just the same. You’d been there for him until the very end, even cleaned up the mess, and then he was just gone. And in no number of monthly phone calls had he ever even told you why you were on the outside with everyone else.

Admittedly you weren’t one to get lonely. Jack’s arms had been open, you’d stepped right in. But a few good times didn’t leave a mark on a love that’s lasted a lifetime. Losing him had hurt, and seeing him here, like this, reminded you that it still did.

“It’s hard for me too,” you continue, deciding to set the tone for an honest conversation that was long overdue, even if it was going to take all day to finish it. “And it’s even harder seeing you like this. I hope you realise that.” You hesitate, breathe, and resolve that now is the start of it, no matter what. “But we’re going to have to talk about it eventually, whether you like it or not. And we’ll get through today, together, like we always do.”

Deciding that’s good enough for a head start, you wait to see where what his next move is. They’re your first honest words since he ran away. You breathe a sigh of relief when he gives you honesty right back.

“I really don’t want to be here,” he murmurs, pushing his hair back for the hundredth time and not bothering to right it as he finally relaxes back into the seat and crosses into the final stage of his grief. He reaches across, places his hand over yours on the gearstick, and cradles it there.

“I know, Javi. I know.”

If there’s one benefit to Javi’s presence, it’s the fact you aren’t the only one that hates hometown weddings. Sitting at the back of the church, heads down, sunglasses on, the two of you are a picture of veritable social disgrace; the ones that got away, and had supposedly been dragged back by the scruff of their necks. And you hadn’t even done anything wrong, this time.

You know the conversation in the car had pushed the mood forward a bit, but the moment he found himself in church, let alone surrounded by a crowd not dissimilar to the ones that likely showed up for his own nuptials, he was back to making a face like he’d just swallowed sour milk.

“Jav, if you sigh one more time before this thing kicks off I’m going to fucking lose my shi-,”

“Don’t you count as some kind of bad omen?” interrupts Maria, leaning over the back of the pew to kiss you and Javi on the cheek.

“I was at your wedding wasn’t I?” grumbles Javi, offering her a halfhearted wink as you both turn to talk to her.

“Touché, Peña. I suppose you’re hiding at the back on purpose then. Not that Bug’s done anything to disgrace the family name.”

“Yet,” you retort sweetly, smiling up at her lovingly.

Maria is a dream, your favourite cousin by miles, sharp as a tack and sweet as a nut. She had been the last one to get hitched, and you take a moment to consider that if it hadn’t been for the leftover supply from the open bar, your one-time fling with Javi might have remained exactly that. You wonder if that solidifies her as your absolute favourite, or if she’s inadvertently caused you more trouble than it’s worth.

She snorts at you and affectionately rests her head on top of yours, cradling you into her with a tight squeeze. “Well it’s nice that you’re both here, Stella will be very happy. I can’t imagine it was an easy decision, but I didn’t expect to find one without the other. We missed you, Javi.”

Javi hmphs for what must be the hundredth time today already, but offers her an affectionate squeeze before she makes her way to the front of the church to join her parents.

“And I won’t snitch if you’re already missing by 3pm!” she calls over her shoulder, shooting you both another wink.

“Sounds like a get out of jail free card if I ever heard one,” he smirks, almost following it up with a laugh. It’s the first show of good humour you’ve heard from him, and you feel yourself latch onto it without hesitation. His rough edges are new, but they wouldn’t come without the smooth. He was in there somewhere.

“And from the sister of the bride no less,” you confirm. “Maybe this won’t be such a long day after all.”

In contrast to local expectations, the ceremony goes off without a single hitch. The weighty silence that followed ‘speak now’ was a loaded gun followed by a knowing laugh from the congregation, teeming with exaggerated sighs and sharp laughter. It was the worst in-joke you’d ever been a part of; as if Javi and Lorraine had even got that far.

They kissed, you clapped, and everyone clambered out of the church and into the afternoon sun to make their way over to the reception. All things considered, it was turning out to be a pretty harmless affair.

They’d got a good deal on a function room at a local hotel, and with the money they’d saved it meant that the bar was stocked, the food was plentiful, and the band was at the very least bearable. You wonder if you could ever put yourself through the process of organising something like this, knowing full well how much it costs to feed at least twenty people you didn’t like alongside the forty that you actually did.

Weddings really weren’t your thing. Marriage, on the other hand, you weren’t so dramatically opposed to.

You watch the room, teeming with people, from your seat at the bar, having found yourself a quiet spot to retreat to as soon as you’d arrived. Small talk at a family event like this was your idea of purgatory. It wasn’t fun or seasonal like the Christmas party, it was just hard work, a perpetual stream of narky distant relatives and friends of friends that just wanted to know how and why you weren’t living up to their expectations. Everyone knows everyone, and you conclude that it must get tiring keeping up with the Jones’.

On the plus side, for all the foibles of the local attendance- gossip-hungry, waiting with bated breath for a slip-up to talk about hungrily at Sunday service- you couldn’t find a single bad word to say against your family.

Your family, the ones that had made you their own.

It had always surprised you how easily the Peña clan had welcomed you into their fold. With the way talk flew in this place, you had always been on tenterhooks for the unspoken truth to come out; your position as an outsider, the less than happy circumstances of your unofficial adoption, the fact they only kept you around because they pitied you. You’d run and re-run every scenario in your head, all of them ending with the quiet confession from the people who took you in that, in fact, the rumours were true, and they, too, didn’t really want you either.

You couldn’t have been more wrong. At the hands of the Peña family’s veritable influence, it was second-hand news. And the Peña’s came in large numbers. Your situation had fallen on exactly the right side of consolation, and the way these people had pulled you into their lives head over haunches was something you could barely think of without your eyes feeling tight. There was no sympathy about it, it was a deep understanding and an obvious solution that came to them all as quickly as it had done Chucho. You had needed a home, and they had one to give.

It was your own parents that had been on the other side of things, for once. You were no longer a ‘difficult’ child, complicated to raise and the direct cause of their frequent absences, extended work trips, and compensatory time off for what they’d given up to raise you. Instead, you were sought after, cared for, knowingly in need of the simple things like a home-cooked meal, a cake on your birthday and a pat on the back every now and then. They wanted you there, everywhere they went, without exception. What the rest of the town said hadn’t mattered after that. They could think what they wanted, the reasons didn’t matter anymore. You were the Peña’s now, in everything but name, and you’d made peace with not being wanted by your own parents in the wake of being told it to your face, time and time again, by every single member of this family. Being here had always been hard, but they’d done everything they could to make it better.

In that same vein, the scorn that followed Javi’s disappearance wasn’t familial, it was local. Not showing up at the altar wasn’t a generational scandal, it was a sign that something wasn’t right. Whatever story Lorraine’s family had spun didn’t matter to your family, because they knew, whatever it was, Javi had done the right thing. The wound of that failed marriage wasn’t the family’s, it was Javi’s. Instead, what everyone else had felt was the loss of him. He just needed time to see that.

You can spot him starting to open up to the idea of that, the notion that he was missed. Even now, his cousins are clinging to him in droves. Despite his own lack of siblings, there was no shortage of people that loved him, looked up to him, and wanted to see him succeed. The fact he had put that into question was another reminder that the place was the same, but what had changed was him.

You know Chucho is right, the outcome will be one of two options.

Beginning to find the whole thing overwhelming, you turn in your seat to order another drink, only to find your 'cousin' Danny behind the bar instead of the bartender.

“Hey, Love Bug,”

“Danny, are you old enough to be serving that stuff yourself?”

“Pshh, you know they got this place booked as a family favour. Management has been looking the other way since Stell’ signed the contract.”

You’re sure the confidence must be genetic, or there’s something in the water at the Peña BBQs. You hold your hands up in mock surrender, an impressed pout on your face.

“In that case, I’ll have another of… whatever you’re currently pouring. I’m done driving for the day.”

He serves you up what appears to be bourbon, and you squint when the sharp smell burns your eyes before your tongue. You forget how different drinking at home is from drinking at work. You resolve it’s more fun when it’s free. However, at the office, you do get to avoid the friendly interrogation.

“Is he okay?” asks Danny, to your surprise, gesturing over your shoulder to you-know-who.

“I don’t know, kid,” you reply slowly. “This is a big thing for him.”

“Mom said he wasn’t going to come back. That he thought we didn’t love him anymore.”

Your heart breaks at the description because you know, in a way, it’s accurate.

“He was always going to come back. I just didn’t think it would be this soon.”

You hope you’ve offered enough exposition without speaking on anyone’s behalf, but you see the way Danny is itching to ask, to know more.

“I’m glad he didn’t get married,” he pushes, “if it was going to make him miserable, I mean.” He’s looking for an adult explanation, confirmation that his hunch is correct, something he clearly hasn’t gotten in the wake of being the baby brother. He knocks back the drink as if it’s a means to seek that approval, to show that he’s old enough to be part of the conversation. “It was a big deal, I know that, but I don’t suppose it’s the kind of thing you do without thinking about it a lot, right?”

“Right,” you confirm, throwing your drink back alongside him in response. “I know it might look like he’s ready to strangle someone right now, but it’s nothing personal. I think he’s just really missed his family.”

“Our family,” he corrects with emphasis.

“Right, kid. And how can we blame him? We’re fucking great.”

He comes to perch on the stool next to you, and you pull him under your arm to give him a tight squeeze and plant a firm kiss on the top of his head.

“Sometimes the one place you want to be is the last place you can bring yourself to go. And sometimes it’s the same with people, too.”

“I get that,” he replies simply, and you feel as though he’s satisfied with the answers he’s got.

“You’re a smart kid, Danny. Besides, you’ll probably be getting married next,” you tag on, winking at him before you can even finish the sentence. He pushes away from you immediately, and despite his mature aura, sticks his tongue out at you without hesitation.

Spotting the solace of your gentle conversation, you see Javi make a b-line away from his aunties and over to the two of you. He claps Danny hard on the back before coming to stand at your side, sandwiched between the two of you, so close he’s nearly flush against the length of you. He’s coming around, you can feel it.

“Looks like you two are having way more fun than me,” he grouses, but his tone is definitely improved from this morning.

“It’s not hard,” you reply, reaching behind the bar to find the bottle Danny was pouring from to top up the glasses all round. “Danny was actually just saying he was worried he wasn’t going to see you again,” you offer, earnestly, avoiding the look of embarrassed betrayal from your younger cousin.

Javi schools the ripple of emotion that passes over his face, immediately replacing it with a gentle smile. “Come on kid, you think I’d leave for good without saying goodbye to you?”

“I don’t know.” he shrugs. “We’ve missed you, Jav. It’s not the same when you’re away, that’s all.”

“I just needed some time. The same way Bug did, remember? It just takes a while.”

You hold back the frown when he brings that up, your going away last year while the wedding was planned, and then unplanned. Part of you is surprised to hear him acknowledge that time at all, to admit that he knows you ran away, too, in a way.

“Yeah, I get that,” he repeats and nods solemnly at Javi. “I’m just really glad you’re back. We all are. I'll catch you guys later.”

Danny waves you both off as he’s summoned by his mother, and you see Javi let out the breath he was holding. You reckon he’s had a lot of that today, or at least a lot more than he was anticipating; affection, acceptance, the welcome home he didn’t think he required nor deserved. He’s a melting pot of emotional conflict- add twenty or so members of your extended family and your own personal group of censurers, and it makes for an intense afternoon.

“How’s it going?”

“Better than I thought, but just as hard as I expected. Half the crowd are the best people I’ve ever met, the other hate my guts. It’s a weird one, on balance.”

“Well, you always were the star of the show.”

He goes to comment but hesitates. He’s going to have to break eventually, and he’s seconds away now, you can see it.

“I didn’t know what to expect. I just didn’t think the two options would be open arms or knives.”

“With you, it’s usually one or the other, Javi. You just haven’t taken any notice before.”

So close now, you can feel that he’s on the cusp of letting go, letting it all out and finally finding some peace. That’s why he’s here. You’ve worked it out now; to kickstart the process. But you don’t want to force it.

“Want to ditch?” You suggest instead, feeling the anxiety rolling off him.

“More than anything.”

He grabs his jacket from the back of a chair, makes brief eye contact with Chucho, and sidesteps out the door without a second guess. The fact he was seeking permission to leave is hilarious to you in a way, as if he’s not a full-grown man, but it's proof again that he’s here because he has a job to do. Bridges to build, foundations to re-lay.

As you both make your way nonchalantly through the hotel foyer, you’re pulled sharply to the side by Javi grabbing your hand and dragging you down a narrow corridor. Breezing along until he reaches the alcove with the payphone, he pushes you gently inside, pulls the curtain across the doorframe, turns back to you, and without hesitation lifts you into his arms to place you on the small ledge that holds the pen and paper for taking messages down. The action isn’t rushed or even overly physical, but precise and well-intended. He holds you there in the close space while you regain your breath, hands placed on either side of you before he can even bring himself to look up at you.

“Please,” he says plainly, “please don’t think badly of me for this, I don’t mean it like that at all. I’m just going to kiss you now, for five minutes, if you’ll let me.”

Still taken aback by the position you now find yourself in, you steady yourself by bringing your arms up and around his neck, and settle into the familiar position of his body around yours.

“Yeah, okay,” you reply quietly, after a moment of silent contemplation, “I’ll let you.”

When his lips meet yours, you feel the way he’s pushing himself into you: all his concerns, his anxieties, his emotions. All at once, he’s giving everything over, as humbly as he can. He hasn’t kissed you like this for- you realise he hasn’t kissed you at all for nearly three years.

And it hits you like a freight train.

The familiarity of the motion is immense. Three years? It was equally a lifetime and no time at all. It was nothing in the grand scheme of things, but also a very sore reminder of time lost, just when things had been on their way to something.

The way he presses his mouth against yours, calculated and precise and knowing, isn’t a flight of passion, it’s just the only way he can show you how, and what, and why. It tells you everything he’s been unable to say since the moment he opened the back door and walked into the kitchen, strolling in as if he’d just been to the store. It’s time passing, and time lost, and time he’s trying to recapture in the way he references moments long gone with kisses that feel entirely the same.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he says eventually, transitioning from his deep, open, movements to small and gentle touches of his lips to yours, to your cheeks, your jaw, your neck. “I’ve missed my family, I’ve missed this place, but it, fuck, it really-”

“Hurts?”

“Yeah. It hurts like a bitch. This is a life I could have had, and I don’t even know if it’s one I wanted. It’s like a bad trip. Maybe worse.”

Placing one final kiss, he releases his hold on you just a bit, enough to show you that he’s no longer wound so tight. Just like Fairfax, you see him take a deep breath and resolve to wade his way through the vat of complex emotions and hard truths that he’s been holding on to for too long.

“No matter what I did, I was going to let someone down. Leaving, staying, saying yes or saying no. It was going to be myself, my family, her, or you. And somehow, I’ve still managed to disappoint all four.”

“Javi-”

“I thought leaving was the best thing. I still think it is. I don’t belong here anymore. And I don’t think I deserve to just come back. But then I see you, the way you breeze around this place in spite of everything it’s done to you and Jesus Christ, I feel the loss of you more than anything. Anything. More than I’ve lost myself.”

His hand finds yours the way it did in the truck, and he rubs his thumb hard and strong into the dip of your palm, steadying himself with the repeated motion.

“I don’t know how it ended up like this. Losing you, what we had built, was the last thing I wanted. It was the worst-case scenario, Ladybug. And I never even said sorry. But I am. You’ll never know how damn sorry I am.”

“You haven’t lost me,” is all you can muster, but your words are bouncing off him in the wake of his onslaught.

“Yes, I have. I know I have, and I should have. You should be furious at me, and I’m sure you are, you’re just too close to say it. But I want to find you again, in whatever shape you may be for me to find.”

“You didn’t have a choice,” you whisper, but it’s fraught and shallow.

“I did. I could have done things differently. I should have taken you with me. I shouldn’t have just left you there to clean up my mess. And I definitely shouldn’t have run away for so long. You deserved more than that. But I couldn’t, talk, for so long. Not even to you. Not even this morning. But you always called, no matter what. You called and listened to me just say nothing. How can you ever forgive me?”

“Javi, there’s nothing to forgive.”

“Yes, there is,” he insists, firmer this time, frustrated that you’re not hearing him the way he wants. “There is and you know it. I know it. It’s shitty and it’s complicated. There is nothing simple about any of it and there is so much to forgive.”

You know he’s right, but nothing in the world could have convinced you to have it out with him right now. Nothing in the world could have convinced you to do anything other than sit here and listen to every word that comes out of this man’s mouth.

“You know,” he continues, pushing on hard and fast now the walls are down, three years' worth of honest conversation pouring out into the tiny space, “it hurts more when I see what I lost from my past over what I gained back for my future. I don’t know if it was worth it. I feel like I left that version of myself with you. I killed a version of our life together on that phone call the moment I told you what I was going to do.”

And, again, he’s right. How he can relay the truth to you in a way that you’ve been unable to for over a year makes you want to yell. Your way of processing has been to not process at all.

“You’re the same to me, Javi,” you whisper, “always. You've been as predictable as anything today. Did you honestly expect this wasn’t going to hurt?”

Ignoring your question, he kisses you once more, chastely, stopping himself from taking what he wants. “I’ll never be the same, Bug. I can’t be.”

His words are teeming with the understanding that, while none of this had been his fault, it had happened regardless. It’s a privilege that he’s got this far in life without it happening sooner. But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“I’m glad,” you quip, finding a cathartic feeling of ease in his own revelation. “I hope you’re never stupid enough to try and get married again.”

You both pause in the silence there and, eventually, he laughs. Really laughs. You wonder how long it’s been since he’s done that.

“I just had to tell you that. I should have told you that. I’m sorry. For everything.”

Pulling you from the ledge to help you to the floor, he presses a small kiss to your split knuckle and straightens his tie. “Let’s get the fuck out of here. I need a drink.”

The bar is the same. Exactly the same.

You realise in your youth you’d never appreciated the atmosphere of the place. The red cast of the neon strip lights give the whole room a uniquely comfortable feeling, in a way that only half-light can manage. The music is authentic, the clientele considerate, and even you weren’t opposed to the sight of a familiar face behind the bar. Not when the one thing you were both looking for is something that feels like home.

After settling your things in one of the wooden booths, Javi brings over two tumblers of god-knows-what and places them on the table, but stops you before you can take a seat. “Come on,” he sighs, pulling you after him toward the worn wooden dancefloor.

The last time you had danced together must have been Christmastime, the final stint of your ‘together’ year. It was new years eve, you think. Everyone had left the small get together you’d thrown and instead of washing up glasses at 3am, you’d stood in the kitchen and swayed listlessly, bone-weary and half sober listening to Eric Carmen. You don’t think you can recall ever being as happy as you were at that moment. It was the end of the best year of your life. That time seems like such a distinct thing to you now, clearly defined and, with that, so obviously a thing of the past. Over.

For a long moment, the two of you stand just like that, swaying back and forth, your feet barely leaving the ground as you just hold one another up. But you know he’s thinking of it, too, when you feel the way he pulls you closer. The conversation had been rolling around the topic since he first mentioned it in the truck. It seemed so menial by comparison to everything else he’d said since.

“So you haven’t met anyone?”

This time it’s you who sighs and rolls your eyes. His more cantankerous nature had worn thin since you left the hotel, obviously feeling the relief of having it out. But, in that same vein, it could only be Javier that could be grumpy with you for dating off the back of him trying to marry someone else. You know the situation is complicated, to say the least, but as far as audacity went, he was certainly toeing the line.

“I’ve met plenty of people, Jav. If you mean ‘am I seeing anyone?’ No, not right now”

“Hmm,” he grunts, clearly unsatisfied with your response. “What about your partner?”

“That’s exactly what he is: my partner. We spend a lot of time together. He makes me feel nice, sometimes. But he’s not the man for me. A quiet indulgence on the side of a very good friendship.”

“That sounds all too familiar,” he grouses, letting you spin under his arm to avoid meeting your eye for a moment.

“You really think you have anything to compare? To us?”

“Never,” he replies plainly, his tone of surprise aimed more toward himself than at you.

“Well, then there’s your answer. What reunion are we on by now?”

“Hopefully whatever your definition of ‘one more’ was,” he quips, so quick to the joke it almost shocks you.

The simplicity of his thought process is endearing. The fact that, in spite of it all, he’s absolutely willing, without hesitation, to pick up where you left off. As if everything hadn’t changed all over again.

“Funnily enough, I think your own wedding was fair game for ‘interference’,” you snipe back, not one to be taken for a ride.

Still, despite his cheek, you can’t help but giggle at his spikey disposition. The whole day had been a stark reminder of how damn soft you were for him. Of how you always would be. The gaping hole his engagement had left was still there, ragged and a little bit raw as you feel the way he pulls your body against his, moving you around him without a second thought, but you can’t ignore the feeling that’s blooming in your chest with so little encouragement.

He was right, you were angry, you are still, but you decide, for just one night, even, that you don’t have to be so valiant about it.

“It’s hard seeing you, Javi. I thought I would be able to just put the whole thing aside. First with you actually getting married, and then with the rest.”

“-not getting married, you mean.”

“In a way, it might have been easier to just let that part of you go. But now it’s just there. Waiting.”

He turns you around to face him and looks down at you then, knowing you’re on the verge of saying something important, and that you’ll only risk saying it once.

“I feel like I’m waiting. For something. I don’t know what anymore. Maybe an excuse to not be with someone else. That’s exactly what this always was, right? It was something until it wasn’t.”

You think he’s reading your tone for harsh, letting the validity of your frustrations take precedence. But he’s wrong. You are soft for him. You always are.

“But here we are again. Without even the slightest encouragement, on the cusp of being something. All you’ve done today is yell at me and here I am, ready to run away with you.”

“You said we’d try, before,” he says, quietly, barely a whisper under his breath. “That you wanted to try.”

“I’d like to try, if you want to.”

“Really?”

“Really. Does that surprise you, honestly?”

“Yes, in a way. I’m surprised by how calm you are. Isn’t this a big deal?”

“Picking up where we left off? We had an arrangement, didn't we? For this exact thing. Admittedly I didn’t expect you to get engaged, but the point still stands.”

You sound calmer than you really are, but if the last year has taught you anything, it’s that now is the time to be honest, while you can.

“One more reunion.”

“Bug, I-”

“I mean it. I’m due some time off. Next time, we’ll try. We can try. For real.”

His hands are gripping your hips now, thumbs digging in, catching at the overlay of your dress. He’s on the cusp of opening a present he’s been waiting a very long time for.

“We’re grown-ups. We can sort this out, right? Plus nothing can be worse than last time.”

Just as you’re leaning into it, feeling the weight of him, catching his familiar scent, you feel your pager beep in your purse. Reflexes kicking in immediately, you’re quickly drawn from the reverie of the moment, and reach to check who’s trying to contact you from work at this time.

To your utter surprise, it’s Jack Daniels.

You hear Javi grunt unceremoniously as you excuse yourself to head toward the payphone in the back. The phone rings once, and you hear his familiar greeting.

“What’s wrong?” you inquire, concern clear, a smile tugging at your cheek as you hear his familiar southern drawl. Being away from him was strange, too. Like you said, you’d never really been lonely.

“Everything okay over there?”

“Everything’s… fine. What’s going on, Jack?”

“Ahh…” he croaks, “ I just miss you is all, got used to having you around on my birthday.”

“Are you drunk?” You can’t help the affectionate lilt of your voice, the laugh that follows ninety per cent of the words you say to him.

“A little.” You hear him smirk back, and in a fraction of a second you can conjure up the image of him, rosy-cheeked, smirking like a bastard, leant against the console table that holds his landline. “You with that boy?”

“Something like that. I thought you were on a date?”

“I was, she just left.”

“At this hour? That’s not like you at all.”

“Well, let’s just say it sounds like your night is going better than mine.”

“I don’t know about that,” you whisper quietly.

“Oh? Something happen?”

“It’s complicated, I suppose. Or maybe the fact that it’s not is what makes it so hard.”

“Just be happy, you stubborn girl. And come back soon. My record player’s getting dusty without you.”

“I’ll be back this weekend. Don’t stay up too late.”

Standing in the alcove of the payphone, you close your eyes and take a deep breath. If that wasn’t some kind of challenge, you don’t know what is. Placing the phone carefully into the receiver, you listen for the dime to drop, and make a surprisingly easy decision in your mind.

The two of you were here again, like you always were.

The difference was, for the first time in a long time, there wasn’t a single thing stopping it.

When you come back to the dancefloor, you find Javi in the booth, finishing off what looks like his drink and your own, before nursing a third.

You place yourself in the space next to him, immediately taking the glass from his hand, and downing the contents without letting it touch the sides. Then, you take his face in yours, running your thumb along the impeccable line of his jaw, brushing it over his sculpted cheek, and place your mouth on his with unapologetic simplicity.

For the first time today, you feel him let his mood completely sweeten. He looks bone-weary, eyes crinkling at the edges as he gives you a weak smile, the kind that says I’m sorry, let’s not fight.

“I love you. I’m tired. Let’s go home,” you say.

And you do.

That night, he lets barely an inch of space between you as he presses himself into you again and again. Like everything else about his movements with you today, he takes his time.

His lips don’t leave your skin, his fingertips are rooted to your hips, his crotch barely ever leaving the smooth swell of your backside against him. You’re tied to him, in some unspeakable way, physically or otherwise, and you’re reminded of it with blinding clarity as he makes love to you for the first time in too long.

You consider the different ways you’ve known him like this, in and out of bed. You would like to think you’ve had him in every way imaginable, but time and time again he shows you something new.

The way he’s fucking you now is immeasurably emotional and unspeakably adult. The juvenile fun of your yearly reunions is totally lost in the fervour of his movements against you, pressing into you with such seriousness that you’d ask him if he’s okay, if you had the room to come up for air.

“Want you so badly,” he groans sweetly over your shoulder, as he reaches to grab your thigh and pull your legs apart, placing his hand smoothly between them to slip against you without a single interruption to his thrusts. “You don’t understand how much- how much.”

You always loved it when he ran his mouth, but even this was different. It wasn’t his usual filth. These were confessions, deep deep secrets he’s kept strapped down since the moment he let you go.

“There’s no one else I want like this. No one I have ever wanted like this. Fuck- you were the last thing I expected and the one thing I want more than anything. Anything.”

His fingers caress you so softly, totally unrushed in the way he wants to build you up and make you feel good. Combined with the heady pressure of his deep thrusts from behind, you find yourself in that space that feels akin to an out-of-body experience. Where the building pleasure is the only thing you can focus on as your extremities feel increasingly irrelevant. Where all you can focus on is you and him and the hot, wet, point where your bodies are meeting, again, and again, and again.

It’s such a contrast from the way you know he can fuck. You’ve seen him sweet, revelling in the repeated surprise of having access to the parts of yourself that you let only him see, but so infrequently, so much less than he’d like to see them. You’ve seen him sharp, too, taking you unrelentingly until you keen for him, pressing his thumb into the soft flesh of the inside of your cheek and pushing until you’re a garbled, withering mess. You’ve seen him tired, and angry, and even unrelenting, turning you over in his hands two, three, four times in a night.

But right now, he’s savouring you. He’s fucking you like you’re his wife.

The reverence of every movement is new and different and totally overwhelming. You compare it to the first time he ever touched you, to how grown up and alive it had made you feel, and you smile keenly at how far away this is from that. This is art. This is a fucking masterpiece.

You contemplate the way his form has changed, too. He’s so broad, so strong. His profession hangs on him in more ways than one, and the sun and sweat and physical demands of doing what he does display themselves in the firmness of his hands, the swell of his arms, and the irresistible stretch of his long, hot body. You could scream with the way you want to give yourself over to him.

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do, fuck- nothing I wouldn’t say-”

“Javier-”

“Anything. I’d do anything you wanted me to.”

“Javi-”

“Turn over.”

It’s not really a request, it’s a warning as he grasps your hip and flips you onto your front. He places a hand firmly on the small of your lower back to steady himself as he hovers over you and arranges himself with his legs on either side of your own, squeezing yours firmly together. You feel the friction immediately as your thighs rub, but also the exposure as your sex is pushed clear to view, plush and ripe. Without hesitation Javi splits it tenderly with two fingers, pressing down, hard. It’s your favourite thing, being had this way. Everything feels so much more genuine when you know he’s pushing you as far as you can go.

“So good, too good for me,” he whispers, awestruck as he holds you entirely still between the points of his fingers inside you and the unyielding restriction of his thighs on either side of your own. After pushing himself to the knuckle, and then some, he pulls his fingers all the way out to the tip and then begins his motion of thrusting back into you, achingly slow but devastatingly hard.

“Use it,” he commands when he feels you squirm against the mattress, directing the involuntary movement of your hips against the bedsheets, encouraging just the slightest motion that you can manage while pinned underneath him.

As you start to build momentum together, him pushing into you, you dragging against the cotton, he relaxes his grip on you and uses the hand on your hip to make your movements longer, harder, firmer. In moments, you’re totally plaint and throwing yourself back into him, catching the most sensitive part of yourself on the sheet while he buries his knuckles in deep. The combination is immense, and as he holds you firm so you never stutter, you’re on the brink.

“Fuck,” you say simply as the feeling overtakes you, and you pour. You feel it bubble over, wet, spilling over his hand, and you revel in how different it always feels to come like this. It’s something you reserve especially for him, because only he can get you to the place where you completely let go and unashamedly indulge in exactly what’s best for you.

And when you’re at your highest, riding the crest of it and revelling in the feeling of the warmth spreading down your legs, instead of bringing you down gently that’s when he pushes himself into you, hard and fast, resuming his earlier design to hold you so close, so tight, that you feel like the same person.

The oversensitivity, still throbbing, is set alight by the drag of him against you, so much more insistent than his fingers, and now so heightened after the way he just finished you off. He pushes you over the edge again without hesitation, the ragged edge of the last one bleeding into another, and only then does he finally let himself follow, only when he knows he’s shown you exactly what he wants you to know.

As he collapses his body against your own, you pray that speaking the words aloud, confessing your love so directly, has solidified this unspoken thing between the two of you, a promise of something more that had never come to fruition, always just a touch outside of your collective grasp.

You sleep better than you have in months, your legs tangled in his, his breath only a fraction away from yours as you feel, for the first time in a while, whole again.

You’re forced to laugh when you discover just how wrong you are about everything.

Javi gets the call the next morning: Colombia, internal secondment, immediate promotion, indefinite timeframe.

It’s an order rather than a request. Things are heating up, and he’s one of the best they have. You don’t even discuss it.

You didn't know it then, but it would be six years before the two of you are home together again.

And just like that, everything had changed again.

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dolly-on-the-dotted-line · 2 years

Text

Interlude: Bathroom Sink

Antics

Rating: 18+

Warnings: Smut, Pining, Clearly in Love Javier Peña, Javi and Bug looking like acting like and smelling like a couple.

A/N: A snippet from what could easily be an entire book entitled Javi and Bug's Summer of Sauce aka Giving the People What They Want. I have a few of these interludes in the pipeline and they are simply shorter entries to the story that take place between the main chapters. Enjoy!

Laredo, Summer, Age 23

He won’t stop giggling. Giggling.

You’ve seen him laugh a hundred times- memorised the rise and fall of every expression, every weathered line on his sunburned face- but you’ve never seen him tittering the way he is right now.

The kisses he’s peppering against your neck are stunted every time by the way his lips pull back, his teeth creeping through as he smirks against your skin. It’s infectious, watching him like this, giddy with suspense and easily the most carefree you’ve seen him since he hit 20 and started thinking about what he wants to do with his life.

Fooling around, especially in the middle of the day, appeared to be the surefire way to force him to relax and act his age. Picking you up meant putting down the weight of the world, at least for fifteen minutes, twice a day.

The summer so far had been blissful. You’d been spoilt with his attention, his blatant affections, his relentless desire to fill your days with the mundane wonders of domestic consistency that you’d fooled yourself into thinking wasn’t everything you wanted.

Being back in the same place at the same time had bled into a wonderful mass of unadulterated time together, totally untouched by the pressures of the outside world. Reality was on hold, right here in Laredo. You had nowhere to be, no one to see but each other, and, subsequently, the two of you had spent five long weeks creeping around the sun-bleached abyss of the ranch, sneaking away when no one was watching and hiding yourselves up in quiet shadows, cosy corners and deep patches of soft summer grass that left nothing to contemplate but your tangled feet sticking out the other end.

The sex had been non-stop, the so-called yearly arrangement getting increasingly irrelevant as quick fumblings at the start of July turned into long afternoons and tender caresses and sweet nothings deep into the night.

Something cracked in Fairfax, and neither of you had been able to look away since. And the best part of it was, you had no reason not to.

It was calmer this afternoon, the usual midday sun struggling to break through and leaving a damper chill in the air. After a morning loafing about town, you and Javi had settled on an afternoon upstairs in the loft watching old movies and shooting the shit. You hadn’t made it that far yet.

His hand on your thigh in the truck had become a regular omen in your day-to-day lives, a promise that the car travelling at 50 was the only thing stopping him from taking advantage of your close proximity and the roof over your heads.

He’d caught you on the stairs, creeping up from behind and lifting you easily into his grasp, toes off the floor, curling you into his large frame and hurrying you into the closest available room that had a door to kick shut.

He’s gathering you up around him now, his hands creeping up your thighs and grabbing at you thoughtfully as he settles for placing you on the bathroom counter, balancing your rear on the lip of the enamel sink.

You grasp him hard when you feel yourself nearly fall backwards, teetering on the edge of the bowl, and he’s finally forced to give in and lift his lips from your skin, laughing fully with his chest.

“What is so funny?” you quip, pulling his face into your hands to get a clear look at him.

His face is chafed from the summer sun, stubble running wild in sporadic patches across his rosy cheeks, hair overgrown and drawing into delicate curls at the back of his neck that he’d cut off in a second if he knew you had noticed them.

You had managed to force a single button open on his plaid shirt while he was busy waylaying your neck, and now found yourself staring, open-mouthed, at the patch of tan skin there, offering a promise of the rest of his broad, tawny, frame that you’d spent an entire season getting acquainted with.

You would think a summer of fucking would have calmed you down, but it was worse than ever. Having him had never been so easy before.

Holding you there, a breath away from falling into the sink, you consider the feeling; how easily he keeps you in check, the only thing holding you to the ground sometimes. Leaning into the reality of that had been another factor of the long summer: the inevitability of just how much you needed him there, and how often you were usually without him.

This perfect chapter of time was ticking away, but you weren’t ready to consider the changing of the seasons just yet. You still had three weeks to play pretend, and you planned to hold on tight for a little longer.

“I like it,” he finally replies, breaking the surface of yet another quiet, awe-struck moment that had become regular fixtures over the vacation. It was hard to get through a single session without at least one of you needing a moment to pause and take a minute, head reeling from the new reality of the two of you, just like this.

“You like what?”

“This. Messing around. It’s a bit… wild.”

He was right. Moving things indoors was always a risk, one you’d been increasingly skirting around when it came to the cooler evenings and shorter afternoons.

Years of living here had taught you every crack in the ceiling, every creak in the floorboards, but you still had to swallow your tongue when you found yourself creeping along the corridor in the dead of night to seek out Javi’s warmth.

You try not to read too much into the seasonal temporality of summer love-making; its reminder of the inevitable reality of going your separate ways again in the autumn. You couldn't fuck outside forever, and you didn't want to think about whether the romantic bliss was going to survive the change in climate.

At its most clinical, the summer was acting as a social experiment for the two of you. In being direct, honest, about what each of you was thinking, it had opened the door for this: something more substantial and nourishing and all together reflecting consistency. The temporality of it was important, but that was a problem for September.

“Chucho is going to be back any minute and you know it,” you hiss, struggling, as usual, to keep a sensible head whenever it comes to you and him and the chance to be alone, which was most of the time these days.

“Exactly,” he whispers against your lips, brushing right past them to kiss your cheek, your jaw, your throat. “It’s naughty,” he smirks, resuming his struggle of pressing kisses while smiling away.

You squeal despite yourself when he ruts up into you, pressing his hard denim against your own without hesitation.

Your thighs have been aching for weeks now, so much so that you’re entirely used to the tender feeling when they’re pushed apart yet again, allowing him to press himself flush to your centre.

Well-worn, stretched out, vigorously exercised. Call it what you will, but the boy was giving you a run for your money. The novelty may be wearing off, but the enthusiasm certainly wasn’t. You never thought you could feel so wanted.

“You’re so beautiful,” he breathes, pulling your shirt up and over your head and catching your arms there, tangling them in the fabric, leaving you bare in front of him.

With your chest heaving, his mouth is a breath away from the sensitive skin there, but instead of moving toward you, he gathers both of your hands into one of his own, securing them at the wrist and pressing them to the mirrored surface of the cabinet behind you.

With your arms pinned, he has free reign to run his other hand up your side, over your chest, and to your neck, securing your face in one broad palm. He holds you up to him, tilting your chin, taking in the whole of you.

That was another change over the summer: he’d started to stare a lot more.

“My pretty girl,” he sighs again, totally lost in the sight of you. It's enough to make your head spin, the way he sees you; how naturally it comes for him to sing your praises.

By securing you against the cabinet, he uses the other hand to force your button open with one dextrous flick and begins to roughly drag your shorts down and over your backside, encouraged all the more by your desperate wiggling to kick them to the floor. He knows the friction is the biggest part of it for you, knows how to make you feel good inside and out of your clothes.

“I’ll never get over how wet you get rubbing up against these tight little shorts, drives me mad.”

The rough scrape of his voice is miles away from his juvenile laugher not two minutes ago. He switches so quickly sometimes you have to double-take. Earnest to flippant, sweet to sultry.

“Javi!” you gasp, aiming for admonishment and settling on encouragement with the groan that follows.

You love it when he’s like this, when his mouth starts running. Despite his world-renowned silver tongue, you never expected him to be able to talk to you like this, figuring the pure filth would be a step too far for your overfamiliarity. But when he’s on his one-track mind, totally consumed by what he’s feeling, it spills out like he couldn’t hold it back if he tried. It was yet another side of him you were getting to love, his ability to cross his boundaries with you, to show you a new piece of him again and again and again.

When he first saw the effect his words had on you, the mix of pleasant surprise and inescapable arousal, he’d leapt into it headfirst. Ever since, he’s been pushing you to the brink of what you thought you knew about your body.

He was holding back on you before, that much had become clear.

You try to bring your hands down to meet his, to grab on to something solid as you continue to slip about on the edge of the sink in your futile attempts to move toward him, but he doesn’t give you the chance, pressing the backs of your hands harder into the cool glass of the mirror.

“Stay still,” he grunts, adjusting your arms to fold willing for him in spite of your struggling. When you refuse to cooperate, he smacks them firmly against the surface once more, but this time with a very clear intention. “Just do what I say for once, you stubborn girl.”

You scoff at his tone, but you’d be lying if you didn’t feel it in your belly. The warmth of his voice, the curt, authoritative edge that makes him sound just like he knows what he’s doing.

“Just let me.”

As if you could say no to him.

You feel yourself entering that space, the non-judgemental version of yourself that he manoeuvres you into so easily. The one that allows everything else to just fall away, and for you to become nothing more than your body and how it feels.

No head, all heart. All racing pulse and loose lips and 'Javi Javi Javi Please'.

He’d been able to ease you into it so easily, too. Part of you wonders how much of it is your ability to isolate this bit of yourself, to treat it as other, and with that lose the ability to get hurt or too involved. The other half knows it's much simpler than that: in reality, you’re too far gone to stop it.

“Yeah?” you can’t help but coax back, toeing the line. Dirty talk was one thing, but giving it back to him was an entirely different kettle of fish, one you didn't indulge in often. “You want it, Jav?”

He smiles up at you, anything but sweetly, grunting again as he uses his free hand to circle your waist and pull you to him, once again lining your soft centre to the hard scrub of his tight jeans. He tuts at you now, his eyes refusing to leave yours as he ruts himself ever so slowly against you.

“I get it twice a day and I still dream of this creamy little pussy. I can’t stop thinking about it. It drives me mad."

“Mad?” you squeak, choosing to escape the intensity of his stare and opting for the ceiling tiles instead.

“Mad for you,” he offers. When you don’t say anything more, holding your breath in an attempt to stifle whatever pathetic moan is on its way, he decides to go on.

“I think about doing things for you. Making you feel better, making you feel like this. I think about how much more I’d like to be doing it.”

He reaches between the two of you to pull the fabric of your underwear to the side, immediately replacing it with the clothed swell of himself once again. The overstimulation from the denim is too intense, but you won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing it.

“I think about how much I want people to know we’re doing it. To see it. Hear it.”

He’s rubbing against you harder now, faster, on the cusp of losing control but very rarely letting himself. His self-restraint at times was moronic.

“I think about how jealous they’d all be. It’s all I can think about. Just you, and me, and the world wishing they could be us.”

Lost in his words, you gasp in surprise when he slides his fingers up into you without warning, pushing himself to the knuckle with apparent indifference.

When he finally lets your hands loose, you immediately wrap your arms around his neck and use the leverage of it to push yourself down onto his fingers, again and again, taking full advantage of your heightened position to work against the feeling of him pushing up into you.

“That’s it,” you sigh, lost entirely to the feeling of it, giving yourself over to it without complaint. Every day there was a point where you felt yourself drawing along the edge of losing it, every day you promised you'd keep your head, and every day still you ended up right here, unable to think about anything but him.

“That’s it, that’s it,” he echoes, in an equally trance-like state as he watches you fall on to his fingers, unable to look away from the sight of you taking him in, swallowing his knuckles shamelessly.

Feeling the way you draw up around him, the shortness of your breath, the way his name starts to pour from your mouth, he follows you all the way.

“Go on, you can do it, I know you can do it, my clever, clever girl.”

And on the cusp of it, teetering on the edge just like you were with the sink, you bring your head back in pleasure, only to feel the sharp sting of it smacking against the side of the cabinet.

“Ow!” you hiss, stunting your movements immediately and triggering you to slap your hand up to meet the point of your head that had collided with the corner of the door.

You bring it back to find blood coating your palm, and snort with frustration at your timely ability to ruin the moment just as it was getting good.

“Fuck,” he states plainly, pulled entirely from his reverie and immediately entering problem-solving mode.

With the arrival of that serious look on his face, you knew the fun was over. With almost comedic practicality, he opens the culprit door and begins to search for a dressing, manoeuvring himself around you tactically in the process.

“Javi," you query, looking down at your still convoluted position on the counter, "your fingers are still inside me.”

Watching his face resemble the equivalent of a car engine refusing to turn over, you're the one to giggle this time, when all he can muster is a chastened "Oh-" and eventually "My bad."

With little ceremony, he pulls them from you, somewhat sheepish at first, before placing them in his mouth.

You baulk at him, ready to swear under your breath, but before you can even manage it he’s pressing them into your mouth, too, pushing down, letting them split so you can push your tongue between the gap and taste yourself there. He lets the pad of his finger linger on your lip for just a second, sealing the moment, and then turns his attention to fully to the task at hand.

“You better wash those before you put my bandaid on, you filthy boy."

It's the closest to a witty remark you can manage when he follows up by pulling you down to kiss him, hard, pushing his tongue against yours with nothing short of loving adoration and filthy demonstration.

“Have I ever told you how good you taste in the afternoon?”

Before you can say another word- to tell him off or, more likely, ask him for more-you hear the rumble of the engine, the scratch of the tires, and the rusty slam of the truck door.

“'Naughty' is no fun if it ends up giving me blue balls, you know,”

“I’ll make it up to you later, sweetheart, I promise.”

He was right, he certainly would.