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#my hometown but i couldn't find her. and ofc i couldn't go to the place where i knew she was.
danniburgh · 3 years
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Rushingly Bittersweet (Javier Peña x f!reader) part 23
Pairing: Javier Peña x ofc//f!reader with name.
Summary: After the fall of Escobar everything starts happening way too fast for Javier; his raise, his new office, his new team, the Cali cartel’s operation, the sudden arrival of a new agent that was transferred to his team for no apparent reason, the way he was falling in love with her almost unintentionally.
And he couldn’t seem to stop any of that.
Word count: +6.4k
Chapter warnings: lmao angst and then fluff, a brief mention of food, and drugs and a dog.
A/N: This chapter is set after season three. // aAAAAAA this is so long i dont even why but it took me like ALL day FUCK FUCK FUCK anyway thanks to all my babies that got me through the desperation of wanting this to write itself lmao, also two chapters and we are DONE with the main story holy shit
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gifs: @pascalsky
Javier groaned when he sat up and moved his legs to get them out of the bed and looked at the alarm clock on his nightstand; three forty-eight in the morning. He turned on the lamp, reached at his nape and scratched with blunt nails and reached for the pack of smokes that he left on the nightstand before laying down to try to sleep with the other hand.
He pulled the last one out of the pack and stood up to throw the empty carton in the trashcan near the door; he eyed the empty pack from the day before in the bottom of the can with the cigarette clinging to his lips thanks to near dry spit making them sticky and let out a deep sigh.
It wasn’t working.
His tongue moved to shift the cigarette from his lips and he let it fall inside the trashcan, knowing it wouldn’t be the last one he put between his lips, but at least he didn’t light it.
Javier thought of getting out of the room and raiding his dad’s bar again, but he knew it wouldn’t do him any good.
It wasn’t working.
He knew it, and it couldn't be denied any longer. He wasn’t getting any younger and his old ways weren’t helping him forget as they used to ten or fifteen years before.
Javier walked back to the bed and sat on the edge, letting his half naked body fall backwards on the mattress and looking at the ceiling, he felt his hand twitch and he felt it empty without a nicotine stick firmly pressed between his index and his thumb but did nothing to calm it down.
Ten or fifteen years before: had it really been that long? Javier huffed at nothing and scratched his chest, leaving his hand there, uselessly wondering what would it be of him if he did something different; incidentally working through years and years of missteps, mishappens, mistakes, and shaping them in some other way that would have saved him from five months of poor sleep and constant drunkenness, five months of chain-smoking and lack of sharpness, five months of only remembering the bad things he had done and the bad things he deserved.
He huffed again because of course his retirement wouldn’t be him sitting on a porch to enjoy the evening Texas breeze and a glass of scotch; even if he had tried it.
It was having nightmares every third night he wanted nothing but to shove deep inside his head, but that then, reluctantly, he had to tell his new therapist his dad had forced him to go to.
It was having to remember all the men he saw dying every time he heard the words war or coke or shooting. Having to remember them changing and fighting and dying for a cause he wasn’t sure if he still believed in. Having to remember Carrillo every time he and Steve talked on the phone.
It was remembering you each time someone sent him a letter congratulating his work or asking for consultation or asking for an interview; because he had an idea of what you had been through and he was sure he didn’t deserve all that claptrap. He did nothing but cause chaos and destruction and death and even though his therapist said it wasn’t his fault he knew it was because he aided for it to happen.
But you? You did everything you could to find yourself a way to recover what was yours, and you still lost it.
Javier sat up again and after six exact seconds of consideration, he leaned forward and opened his nightstand drawer. He took the black tape he had been clinging to for five months and held it in front of him for a couple of minutes.
He chuckled at himself and gripped the small cassette, took from the drawer his tape player, pressed the red button for it to open, let the tape fall in the slit and closed it, turned it on and rewinded the tape, trying to make the calculations in his head of how many times he had repeated that process as the tape ran to the beginning.
He put the headphones on, laid down back on the bed and pressed play.
“Hi, Javi, uhm…”
God, how he missed you.
The phone rang again, fuck the phone, you thought, and hid your face under a pillow, trying to fall asleep again despite the clear signal that you were no longer sleepy.
And the phone rang again, you lifted your head from the cocoon of pillows and eyed the clock on your nightstand, who was calling you at five seventeen in the morning?
Grunting, you got out of the bed and walked out of the bedroom to the small space that made your living room, dining room and kitchen and got to the phone.
“Hello?” your voice was a deep groan, and you cleared your throat.
“Another letter came for you, when are you gonna change your address?” your dad’s voice broke through the receiver and you closed your eyes, breathing in and out the stress it was already provoking in you.
“I’ll get to it, dad,” you replied “are you gonna send it to me or can I go to the house?” you questioned, feeling already your lower lip tremble.
“I’ll send it, your mom doesn’t wanna see you yet,” he let out in a stern voice “sorry, pumpkin.” he whispered and hung up the phone.
You sat on the armrest of the loveseat next to the phone and let your tears fall from your eyes, not even bothering about cleaning them anymore.
You sighed and nodded to yourself, letting your tired gaze roam around your tiny living space and you missed the openness of your family house, the one you had come back to and were expelled from by an angry mother that felt ashamed of the truth you told them.
But you had to give it to her, she didn’t even know you went down to Colombia, or that you’d been having drug issues, or that they fired you.
She had told you she didn’t know who you were anymore.
Neither did you.
So you left, they couldn’t be more disappointed in you than you were in yourself, so you walked out as your mom wanted and tried to find a home for yourself as you still wondered what the hell were you supposed to do. There wasn’t a handbook or a protocol that taught people how to stop being a DEA agent, the government didn’t train people to go back to civility or even offered a program to forget all the shit you had lived in the places they had sent you.
You stayed in your hometown, unknowingly to your old friends and twenty minutes away from your parent’s home and didn’t leave your house unless absolutely necessary; Albuquerque wasn’t a small town, but it wasn’t big, and you were dreading walking past someone who knew you before you had lost yourself and tried to explain all your baggage, you didn’t have the time, or the energy. And you didn’t want people feeling sorry for yourself, with the woman in the mirror you had enough.
Everything seemed pointless, and you felt heavy all the time, as if you were carrying a chain ball in each foot and shackles in your hands while being dragged down by quicksand.
In the kitchen's corner you saw the last two boxes you still didn’t have energy to unpack after moving them across the continent and let out a teary sight as you stood from the armrest and walked to them.
You opened the first box and saw it filled with office clutter; pencils, markers, some notebooks and notepads, the brown journal you had been looking for to burn on your stove; a set of keys you weren’t sure what they opened and in the bottom, folded pieces of paper.
“Oh, no.” you muttered to the air of the warm kitchen and you doubted reaching in for it… The hesitation lasted two minutes but for you it was like two hours, you knew what it was, you knew why it was in that box and when you took it it felt hot and heavy. You were holding feelings in that letter, you were holding hours of shed tears and memories you didn’t want to have anymore. Memories that still haunted you whenever you smelled roasted colombian coffee and saw an ad of Malduros on tv.
You didn’t open it. You knew what was written there. And for a few seconds you thought of burning it on the stove instead.
“Well, I don’t want this, might as well send it.” you muttered under your breath, recognizing it would do you some good to stop holding to it, acknowledging it would do you some good to know he had it. If he wanted to rip it into millions of pieces or burn it or toss it in the trash or eat it, it was his problem.
You bit your lip as you walked to the phone; you hadn’t thought of him in a while. But as you sat on the loveseat all the shit you wanted to bury if not get rid of came back to your mind like a high wave of a rough sea; sharp, cold, gritty.
“Shit.” you gasped, trying to breathe in and out several times because you didn’t want to cry. It was too early for crying.
You grabbed the phone and thought who could have Javier’s address. God, even thinking of his name made your chest flutter and your stomach churn. You had fooled yourself into thinking he didn’t have an effect on you anymore, into even assuring five months was enough to forget him. What a fool.
You dialed the number of the only person you knew for sure knew the address by heart; the phone rang three times before it was answered.
“Hello?” a sleepy nasal voice greeted, and you smiled through the few tears that had accumulated in your eyes, grateful that he still had his embassy issued cell phone.
“Stod!” your smile was making your cheeks hurt, and you wondered in the back of your head when was the last time you had smiled.
“Who’s this? Flor?” he asked and you let out a stiff chuckle. You decided not to be a huge asshole and dump something heavy as your actual name that early in the morning, so you went with it.
“Yeah, sorry to call at this hour, did I wake you?” you played with the edge of the loveseat’s armrest.
“Kinda,” a noise of shuffle was heard “but it’s almost seven here, so I’m not that mad,” he teased, making you chuckle again “how are you? to what do I owe the honor?”
“Uhm, I–‌I’m calling to take advantage of you,” you said, hearing his chuckle through the line and a whisper of of course you did, “by any chance do you know Peña’s address in Texas?” you asked, closing your eyes and crossing your fingers, wishing for him to not ask:
“Why?”
“I–‌I have something of his...” you mumbled under your breath “I just found it and I wanna send it.” you said, which wasn’t technically a lie.
“Uh…” Stoddard hesitated, and you heard a faint of a pouring noise in the back that made you sigh, a cup of coffee would do you wonders, “well I do–I don't know if I’m allowed to just say it, y’know?” you frowned.
“Oh, come on, please?” you pleaded, your leg started bouncing because of the anxiety that was growing in your chest.
“What is it? is something important?” he asked.
“Super important,” you nodded even though he couldn’t see, “he needs it.”
“How do you know?” he questioned again, and you whined under your breath.
“Uhm, I ju–‌I just know, uhm…” since when were you a twitchy, nervous mess? “can’t you just tell me?”
“Not really, no.” he muttered in that voice that made you want to punch him and hug him at the same time.
You let out the air of your lungs and controlled your body.
You had promised yourself to tell the truth when it was necessary. So you were going to.
“Look, Stod, this is long to explain, okay?” you began, and he hummed affirmatively in response, “the only thing you need to know is that the thing I have here is very important that he gets because he needs to know that I kept it for him.” you said, closing your eyes again.
“Flor you just told me nothing.” he let out, his voice was being muffled and it sounded like he had something in his mouth.
“Fuck, Stoddard, I love him, okay?” you let out “and this thing I have is a letter that I need him to have so he knows I love him!” you panted and bit your lip when he didn’t answer.
You just had said out loud you loved someone, you just had said to someone you loved Javier Peña for the first time. Shit.
“Oh,” Stoddard said after a moment and you held your breath, “you have where to write?”
“You’re a fucking king!”
Six hours later, you wanted nothing else but to turn the fucking car around.
“This is a mistake, this is a fucking mistake!” you yelled inside your car, opening the glove box to toss there your sunglasses. The highway 285 was eternal, and you hated driving through it; it was empty, there was nothing but desert landscapes and the occasional tree, but you were halfway, just crossing the state border and there was nothing in the everlasting earth that would make you drive back home, not even your fucking hesitation, not even your self-doubt.
“What the fuck am I gonna say?” you asked yourself again, chewing on your lower lip and gripping the steering wheel, “am I just pulling on his driveway and knocking on his door and saying hi I’m sorry I broke your heart I have a letter for you? Fuck!” you saw the beginning of yet another town and you drove slowly looking for a gas station, “or better yet, I read this shit to him to complete the humiliation!” you turned your head for a second at the letter resting easily in the co-pilot’s seat and you groaned, finding a gas station. You were also hungry.
With the car’s tank full and a plastic bag filled with snacks for the remaining six hours, you sighed to yourself and started driving again.
“You’re doing this because you need closure,” you told yourself, shoving your hand into a bag of salted chips and bringing three to your mouth “if he doesn’t wanna see you, too bad, he’s gonna miss your haircut,” you mumbled, chewing at the same time “you leave the letter and let him decide what to do with it.”
With the highway 285 long behind you and the sky just beginning to turn orange, you had convinced yourself of your own reasons and you even had a plan to go back home as soon as you were done in Laredo. You also had promised yourself and all your Muertos, you wouldn’t react to Javier Peña if he didn’t react to you and as you had learned in your three-year station in México, you can’t break a promise you made to dead people.
“Shit, shit, shit,” you said when the marked map told you you were a block away from the Peña’s ranch house, you were chewing the last bit of a nearly melted chocolate bar you had bought hours ago as your nervousness betrayed you and you started chuckling at your impulses, “holy fuck, I wanna go home!”
But you were already there. The gate was open and there were two trucks parked on the driveway. So you sucked everything you were feeling, and you turned off the ignition. Fuck. It.
You breathed in and out several times before you unbuckled your seatbelt, grabbed the letter and opened the door. You did it again as you walked the gravel path to the house and were grateful it was already dark, so at least the night could help you hide until the last second.
You stopped walking, rationality coming back to you.
“What the fuck am I doing?” you whispered to yourself and turned around, shaking your head as you walked back to the car.
“Mija!” you heard behind you, you froze in place and stiffened at the sound of a thick accent in a rough and warm voice.
“Oh, no.” you said under your breath.
“It’s you!” you turned around, and you saw the face of the man you had only met through an old picture Javier carried with him at all times. “viniste.” (you came) behind him walked a black, large dog that ignored the man and huffed at you.
“I’m sorry?” your voice went out thin and high, and you wanted to chastise yourself for it. You had given yourself a seven-hour pep talk on the way, and you were already breaking.
“I told him,” the man rolled his eyes behind the glasses he was wearing and gestured for you to walk closer “Jesús Peña, nice to finally meet you,” he extended his hand to you and you took it and shook it, the dog got closer to you and smelled your legs, you tried to smile at him and at the dog but tears were already gathering inside your eyes “le dije que ibas a venir a buscarlo.” (I told him you’ll come looking for him)
“I’m sorry, Mr. Peña, I–‌I do–‌”
“Mr. Peña nada,” he interrupted, “call me Chucho,” you nodded and sniffed slightly “ven,” (come) he gestured again and started walking towards the house, “Pepe, métete.” (get inside) he called, and the dog trotted to his side.
“Wait, Chucho, wait!” you called him under your breath as you followed him, he didn’t stop.
“Come on in,” he opened the house door and waited for you to get inside. He nodded his head for you to walk in and you frowned.
“You don’t even know who I am, what ar–‌”
“I know enough,” he said solemnly, walked inside and you and the dog did too and he pointed to an armchair “siéntate, mija, he’s on the back.” he turned around and walked through an archway to what it looked like the kitchen and disappeared through a door, Pepe behind him.
“What the fuck.” you sobbed out, knowing you had little time to leave the letter you were clutching in your hands on the coffee table in front of you and walk out and leave for good. But you couldn’t move, you were in Javier’s house and you wanted to stop being there, but your body was frozen in place and you felt like you couldn’t breathe. You wanted to scream at yourself, at your fucking impulses; you had all the opportunities to turn around and go back home, why didn’t you listen to your logical, rational, always right brain?
“Hi.” you heard behind your back and you covered your mouth with the hand that wasn’t holding the fucking letter.
You turned around and blinked the first two tears of what you already knew was going to be a sea of them.
He was wearing the red shirt. And God, it was his color.
Javier wanted to run away and hide.
He had just made peace with never seeing you again; he had just accepted that the only part he would have of you was that voice mail you had left him months before. But there you were, teary and gorgeous in front of him. Shaking and with your hands holding a piece of paper as if it were your lifeline.
His head was a contradiction, because he wanted to grab you and hug you all the same he wanted to grab you and shove you out of his house and his life.
“What are you doing here?” Javier asked, knowing deep inside him he wanted to tell you how good you looked and how much he liked your new hair. You let out a shaky breath at his deep voice. You had missed it.
It was the first time you saw him in five months, and the weight of your feelings for him fell again on your shoulders like a recently broken off boulder, heavy, rough edged and shapeless.
“I don’t know.” you answered truthfully, he sighed and deviated his eyes from you, you breathed in heavily and the only thing that got into your lungs was his essence. You cursed under your breath and he huffed, putting his hands on his hips and leaning to the side.
“How d'you found me?” he questioned, and you huffed through the tears.
“I have my resources.” you let out on a whisper. Trying to find his eyes, you needed to see his eyes.
“What do you want?” Javier asked again, and you deflated at the tone of his voice. The rational part of your brain yelled I told you so at your feelings and you knew it was right, you were expecting too much of yourself and of him.
“See you,” you bit your lower lip and Javier saw from the corner of his eyes how you scrunched up your nose, and he felt something inside his chest flutter, hating and loving all the same how much of you he still had stored inside his memory, “I have something for you.”
“Keep it.” he let out. You shook your head and raised your hand with the letter on it.
“Read it.” you half ordered, half pleaded, Javier chuckled and then shook his head, mimicking you.
“I don’t want it.” he knew he was lying to himself, he wanted to know what it was, he wanted to grip it and smell the paper and read it over and over but his body wasn’t responding to what his feelings were telling him and only responded, almost in automatic, to his prideful side, to that side of him that still resented you and himself.
“Alright then,” you said, standing straight after realizing you had regained the ability to read him even through your tears, and understanding there was something he was struggling with, “I’ll read it.”
“Stop.” Javier frowned and looked at you, his eyes pleading for you to do something you couldn’t decipher.
“I know, okay?” you said, trying to reassure him and yourself “I know I’m in no position to ask for shit,” Javier dropped his hands to the sides “but I just want ten minutes, just ten of your life, and you’ll never have to see me again if that’s what you want.”
You knew it was a risky thing to say, but you needed him to know, you needed him to understand you because you knew and he knew you did understand him. And he needed to know you. You and your version.
He said nothing, you took it as his queue to start so you breathed in deeply and unfolded the letter.
“Stop.” Javier said under his breath.
“No,” you wiped a tear off your cheek “I wrote this when I went back to Colombia after I got fired,” Javier looked at you and you saw his face quirk in something close to pain “uhm, before I wrote this I drove around Bogotá,” you recalled that last day in the city and how much it pained you to be there, “I went–‌I went to some of the places you told me you liked” you tried to smile and dropped your eyes to your shoes, trying to find something to cling to and compose yourself “even that little cafe you told me about, near the palace of justice, remember?” you sobbed out. And he called your name. Making you gasp.
“Stop,” you looked up at him and saw him frowning, his eyes glistening with unshed tears, “we don’t need this.”
“I do!” you let out, Javier brushed his lips with his thumb and felt his hand twitch in need of nicotine again “I need to tell you all this!” you wiped your tears away again “I need closure!” you cried out.
Javier felt his stomach turn around and all the blood of his body went to his feet. Fuck. 
How could he had been so stupid? he got into his own feelings too much and he forgot that you had cried your eyes out to him all those months ago when you handed him everything you were in a couple of manila folders. He had gotten wrapped by his own feelings and the hurricane your declaration had created in his life that he had forgotten just how much you were suffering as well. Because he might have thought about you; all the time, every day; he thought about your past and your reasons and motivations. He even thought of you naked on his bed in Colombia, under his body, moaning and gasping when he needed some release, but he forgot to think about your feelings.
“I didn’t come here to ask for forgiveness because I know I don’t deserve it,” you said and Javier felt the wetness of a tear escaping his eye and making its way through his cheek, “I’m trying to get closure, Javier, please let me try.”
Javier nodded.
You cried more when you saw him brush a tear off with his thumb and chew the inside of his mouth. You wanted to run away; you were sure he was better before you came to his house and disrupted his peace; you were hurting him again, and you wanted to kneel in front of him and ask him for what you said you weren’t seeking. He made you want so much.
You sniffed and dropped your eyes to the open letter in your hand, Javier didn’t move from where he was standing.
“No amount of guilt will or can change the past,” you began, Javier crossed his arms on his chest and saw movement to his side, “that much I know. I kno–‌know that it doesn’t matter,” you sniffed again and Javier turned his head to watch the dog casually walking towards him and sitting next to his boots. You saw it too, and you let out a sad chuckle.
“Ignore him.” he just said. You nodded.
“Uhm, it doesn’t matter how much I apologize, or how many I’m sorry’s I mouth, forgiveness doesn’t come for free.” you didn’t want to lift your eyes to see him, so you continued.
Javier only saw you reading him something he was sure you had poured your heart into, and he wanted nothing but to hear what you wanted to say to him, but he couldn’t focus into listening, because there you were, again in front of him doing what he never dared to do.
Opening your fucking chest, taking your heart out and giving it raw to him.
“...knowing and realizing and acknowledging just how much I love you.”
Javier drowned a gasp, as he fell in love with you all over again, you were doing what he didn’t have the balls to do, because in his sleepless sleep he wanted to look for you, in the middle of his idle nights, just after waking up after a nightmare, he wanted to find you and go to you and tell you whatever the fuck he could to be back with you. But he never did, he never did because he was a coward, because he feared his own feelings so fucking much.
He couldn't hear anything of it after your declaration of love. God, how much he loved you. You were standing there, with your eternally hopeful eyes filled with crystalline tears and several pages of written feelings. And he realized, there, with you in the middle of his living room, shifting to the next page, that even though you were extremely similar, you were also very different.
“...with you I found a reason to give up after all the shit I've lived in…” you muttered and he found the differences inside him; you were braver than him, you were smarter and more connected with what you felt; you weren’t scared of your feelings as he was. You went for what you wanted and even though it had been five months of that dreadful day when he saw his heart squeezed out of his body by your hesitant hand, that day he still replayed inside his head when the day was just over and his brain was floating between sleep and awakeness, he still wondered why you were bothering.
“There were so many things I thought…” you kept reading as he wondered if it was possible for the two of you to connect with each other outside of shared trauma and sympathy for each other’s experiences. But he answered to himself that even if you two weren’t as emotionally available as you needed to be to build a relationship or if you both were having a hard time adapting to be and live out of the system, maybe the love was real.
You stopped reading after noticing he was just standing there with his arms crossed and his eyes on you but not seeing you; you wiped the last of your tears and chuckled bitterly to yourself. Making him blink a few times.
“Fuck this,” you crumpled the pages in your hands and dropped them on the coffee table, shaking your head. Javier frowned, “it doesn’t matter what I read, I shouldn’t have come.” you said, drowning your sobs and gasping for air. He wasn’t paying attention, and nothing about it was making you feel any better about anything.
“What?” Javier whispered, dropping his hands to his sides.
“A’right, then…” you didn’t look at him and tried to control your breathing again “I guess that’s what I wanted to do,” you walked to the door and opened it, Javier wanted to ask what the fuck was happening, he wanted to grab your arm and stop you as he didn’t do it when you were leaving his office back in Colombia “I’m sorry to have bothered you, Javier,” he winced slightly involuntarily at the way you sobbed out his name “I’ll go.”
You walked out of the house covering your mouth with your hand to muffle your sobs, your rational brain was right, it was a mistake; it was a complete and utter mistake, and you were so ashamed of yourself for even thinking it would change anything. You walked to your car feeling the sharp, stinging sensation of a migraine settling in your head. You heard steps behind you and you turned around slowly, not wanting to put hope on the source being Javier.
“Mija,” you look at Chucho trying to catch up with you, “¿a dónde vas?” (where are you going?)
“I’m going home.” you said, shrugging at the man when he stopped in front of you.
“Why?” he asked, frowning.
“Because he said nothing, Chucho,” you bit your lip and looked at the Texan night sky and huffed at yourself, “he said nothing.”
“But he wants you, mija!” he assured you, and you shook your head several times.
“If he wants me as you say,” you pointed towards the house behind him, “then how come I’m not with him?” you reasoned, “he doesn’t want me.”
You dropped your eyes to the gravel path as Chucho sighed and raised his hand to squeeze your shoulder just enough for you to feel less sad. Just how a father would do.
Chucho glared at the house, the door open and Pepe standing in the threshold; his son had been back for months, he had been living next to him, eating next to him, working next to him and breathing next to him just as he did before he went away but he knew, just like a father could, he was not the same man that left.
He reminisced over the muchacho his son was before he left Laredo, so eager to get out of the small town he grew up in and that harbored his family home, so anxious to meet new horizons, so keen to find and explore new places and learn new things; he sometimes found himself missing that boy, he sometimes missed his Javi; the one that helped him build a paddock for his own horse, the one that washed his truck without asking and without failing each friday evening, the one that took care of his Mamá’s funeral at sixteen when himself was too sad to think about coffins or tombstones; because the man that came back to him after almost two decades too far away from home wasn’t the same.
He had seen and done things that Chucho never wanted to to ask about but he imagined, his Javier wasn’t the same. And Chucho knew why, but he also knew about you. Javi had talked about you way too much for his own good, as he did everything. And Chucho also knew why, he wasn’t letting the woman that made his son come back home run away.
“He does want you,” he said, slowly, with a low voice, as if it were a secret, “mijo… es un idiota a veces, but he loves you.” (he’s an idiot sometimes)
“You don’t know that.” you refuted.
“I do,” he gave you a smile that was barely visible under the white mustache “el te ama, y yo…” (he loves you, and I…) “I’m so grateful.” you shook your head as two thick tears left your eyes.
“I broke his heart.” you sobbed out.
“Y me lo trajiste a casa, Florecita” (and you brought him home to me, little flower) you sobbed harder, not able to control it anymore, and he brought you to him, and held you.
��He told you my fake name?” you asked between sobs.
“He told me what you look like.” he muttered.
“I’m so sorry.” you let yourself be wrapped by him and you hid your face on his shoulder.
“Don’t be, without you I would’ve lost my only child.” you held him tighter.
“Please.” you pleaded for nothing and everything at the same time.
“You gotta fight for him, mija.” he muttered to your ear, and you shook your head, still leaning into him.
“I’m fighting for him!” you almost yelled “I’m here, aren’t I?” you lifted your head to look at the man and you gasped for air, dropping your hands to your sides “I drove almost thirteen hours non-stop all the way from Albuquerque just to be here!” you told him and the man stiffened as you lost your shit in front of him, you gripped your head between your hands “thirteen hours to read him that stupid letter and he didn’t say shit!”
“You did what?” you heard and lifted your head to see Javier standing behind his dad.
Chucho looked at Javier and then at you with your cheeks dampened with tears. He squeezed your shoulder again and turned to walk to the house.
“You were in Albuquerque all this time?” he said, and you nodded, noticing he was holding the letter in his hand “when you said you’d go you meant back there?” he frowned in confusion.
“Well, yeah, I have nowhere to stay so I might as well drive home.” you muttered, Javier’s frown deepened, and he stepped towards you.
“Stay here,” he said, “if you wanna leave you leave in the morning.” his voice was thin and low. You looked at his eyes and saw them reddened and wet.
“Did you read it?” you whispered out. He stepped towards you again, nodding.
“Stay.” he whispered back.
“You don’t want me.” you said under your breath as shook your head and he stepped closer.
“Who says that?” he asked, and you looked at the gravel path again.
“I won’t stay.” you felt Javier’s warm fingers graze under your chin and lift your head to him slowly.
“Don’t be so stubborn,” he chastised you with half a smirk forming on his lips “stay with us.” you shook your head again.
“You don’t want me here but you want me to stay,” you said, frowning at him “Javier you can’t have it bo–‌”
“I want you to stay,” he interrupted you “I want you to stay with me,” he whispered as his fingers moved to your cheek and wiped away a tear. “please.”
Javier had read your letter after you walked out and realized, at the prospect of you leaving for what it seemed like forever, at the possibility of you leaving him for good and he never getting to see you or your gorgeous face or your hypnotizing eyes or hearing your voice that did so many things on him, that the balance of his other losses leaned upwards when he weighed the probability of losing you.
Did he care about what you did? of course he did, it still stung sometimes deep inside his chest, it still filled him with something close to grief.
Was he willing to work it out and let it aside because he didn’t want to feel the agony and deep sorrow of not having you by his side he had been feeling for the last five months again? yes.
And the answer to that question inside his head startled him and shook him deeply.
You were there. God, you were there, there was no way he was going to let you leave.
Javier decided you could work it out later, he loved you way too much not to try. He didn’t even plan to love you the way he did, the way he discovered by reading that letter or remembering the man he was without you. He didn’t even plan to love you at all, but he did. He was madly, insanely, deeply in love with you.
Javier moved his hand to your shoulder and let the one holding the letter find its way to your waist. Find its way home.
“Don’t go.” he whispered again. He moved the last step to wrap his hands around you. You let out a low yelp at the feeling of his body so close to you, for a second you froze in place, your eyes closed and his warmth invaded your entire body as he hid his head in the crook of your neck. He inhaled your essence as you hugged him back and gripped him tightly against you.
Javier felt as if all his parts were being glued back together.
“Stay with me.” he whispered against the skin of your neck.
So you stayed.
←previous // next→
*THE LETTER*
Pepe:
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I don't know if this is trauma or valid enough. Please only answer if your team/people feel comfortable.
TW CW // physical, emotional, verbal abuse & non-touch csa + possible csa. drug addicts. child neglect.
When I was growing up I used to live in the hood of my hometown with my parents and they started off okay, but when my drug addict uncle came and brought his kids every two three months it got worse & worse.
My father was a very easy to anger man in my house. He would punish me and my younger brother, who at the time were undiagnosed autism siblings, with beating our asses until we couldn't sit.
He'd lock us in our room and then turn off the lights. Not give us dinner. Scream at us that he'll give us something to cry about. Beat us more. Or simply say "YOUR HURTING YOUR MOTHER!" as she'd sob for us.
I was not allowed to comfort my brother. Neither was he. I was chased up the stairs, had my ass smacked. As an AFAB I watched my father degrade women like property or simply a sexual desire I never understood.
I thought if I was like that I would earn his love and desire. So I one day sat with my legs around him and began to the mimick the things I saw. He didn't punish me. He just shoved me off and said "not here."
He would come into my showering time & pee. Or he would turn the water to boiling hot and then the rest of the house would howl in laughter when I cried and screamed. I made my mother stay in the room with me as I showered cause I was too scared to shower alone.
I was not given privacy. I have most symptoms of CSA but I only remember the touch of a hand on my back in the middle of my night and being too scared to move. Along with it, I have phantom feelings of a dick inside of me.
As I grew, things calmed down. But it got worse when I got a trans boyfriend in 2019. I was told I was being lied too. Manipulation. He was abusing me. That I was telling him lies about the family.
They celebrated our breakup in August 2020. I was heartbroken and sobbing and they sinply said they saw it coming.
And I admit I have done some horrible horrible shit too. As a little kid I tried to rape another kid likely using the same tactics that were used on me. I stopped, ofc. But it still haunts me.
I still can't brush my teeth. I can't sit on the toilet right. EVERYTIME a door slams my blood pressure spikes and I'm always ready to defend myself, my brother or my mother. Despite her turning to his side too.
I don't eat right. I have a eating disorder. I have time loss. I struggle with major depression. I have the emotional regulation of a 4 yr old as I best put it.
I so badly want to both leave this place and people behind yet the very small moments of peace and kindness bring me back in. Then I get hurt.
It feels like a cult I can't escape from. I've tried CPS. I've tried COPS. I'm waiting til I can drive so that I can try the fire station for any help. I have a little under 2 yrs until im 18 and I have no source of money. I'm considering just leaving the month after graduation because I don't wanna stay with these people any more than I have too.
I would rather be homeless & die then stay here with these people who have abused me for being trans, gay, and for being myself and who will never admit to neglecting me and leaving me as the parent for my brother.
That is definitely trauma and is 100% valid enough. The only requirement for being trauma and valid enough is for you to be traumatized and affected by it. That is all.
In addition that is horrific abuse. I’m so sorry that you had to go through that. You deserved so much better than to have to go through that. You deserved to be helped by CPS and the police, because it’s their jobs to protect you from abuse.
I hope you’re able to leave that situation and find the safety and healing that you deserve.
- Mod Allison
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