Tumgik
#fountain of sorrow
loliwrites · 3 months
Text
✖︎ FOUNTAIN OF SORROW ✖︎
Tumblr media
❖ SERIES MASTERLIST ❖
When you see through love's illusions, there lies the danger. And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool.
○ SUMMARY: After having been transferred out of Colombia for his safety, Javier Peña's back in his hometown. When an act of chance (thanks to an irresponsible ex) brings him into your life, you find yourself developing something for the one time federal agent playboy of Colombia. But who knew Pablo Escobar would fuck up your life, too?
○ SERIES WARNINGS/TAGS: set between s2 & s3, early/mid ‘90s, single mother [reader has a young daughter][child won’t play a massive role], angst, some domestic fluff, SMUT [specific warnings per part], terrible exes, female reader, no physical description, protective!javi, no use of y/n
○ PLAYLIST
○ PART INDEX:
⇢ AUGUST - Nice Girls Don't Stay for Breakfast With these words I professed, I have just one small request: Pass the jam. ⇢ SEPTEMBER - Beast of Burden All I want is for you to make love to me. ⇢ OCTOBER - I'll Be The Moon I don't wanna be a secret but this is something I can't lose. ⇢ NOVEMBER - Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now (coming april 11) And if this world runs out of lovers, we'll still have each other. ⇢ DECEMBER - Let Me Down Easy I'm right on the edge of giving in to you. Baby, it's a long way down. ⇢ JANUARY - Lonesome Town Goin' down to Lonesome Town where the broken hearts stay.
156 notes · View notes
zegalba · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Yoshitomo Nara: Dogs from Your Childhood (1999) & Fountain of Sorrow (2001)
2K notes · View notes
dreamofmourning · 2 years
Photo
Tumblr media
Margaret Atwood
3 notes · View notes
venomgaia · 1 month
Text
just learned the creator of the regalia crossflex isnt making nibs anymore and ive never been more devastated
7 notes · View notes
twitterexile · 9 hours
Text
Tumblr media
3 notes · View notes
pinkdean · 7 months
Text
I have to got start listening to stupider music so I can enjoy it without getting sad about dean winchester
7 notes · View notes
lostandmost · 11 months
Text
the way i used to have three super close work friends that i'd go to happy hours with weekly and then they got rid of our department so the top people had to start their own firm and hire all of us and then my work bestie left and now my second fave coworker is leaving and even tho the baby coworker is so friendly and nice, it's not the same, and i just miss when we'd spend the last 30 mins of the day on fridays in each other's offices laughing and gossiping and talking trash reality tv and waiting for everyone to be done so we could grab drinks, everything really was forever until it was no more.
4 notes · View notes
crushofdoves · 1 year
Text
i best remus LOVED jackson browne and sirius made fun of him for it but they cried a little every time ‘fountain of sorrow’ played and bought his own copy of ‘late for the sky’
4 notes · View notes
racinginthestreet · 2 years
Text
seen james taylor live w/ jackson browne tonight. and wat a show
9 notes · View notes
corvianbard · 2 months
Text
#5980
Muses of the high Olympus, Sing of Sisyphus and his struggle To defy death, chained in dishonor, Though there will be a turntable. Nine daughters of memory, Sing of how the queen of sorrow Put him in his place as a mortal Upon a barren barrow. Fountains of inspiration, Sing away to make his heart bolder For him to continue his thankless task To give a throne for any boulder.
1 note · View note
teyamsatan · 1 year
Text
High Infidelity
Adult!Neteyam x (f)Metkayina!Reader x Ao'nung
Warnings: cheating, smut (fingering, oral - f receiving, praise kink), cursing, 18+ minors dni
Word count: 3.7k words
Notes: oops, was supposed to write other things, but listening to this song triggered smth in my brain so here it is x enjoy ;)
next part (x)
Do you really want to know where I was April 29th?
Do I really have to chart the constellations in his eyes?
“I’m tired, we can do it tomorrow.” 
“Ao’nung, we haven’t been swimming together in months. We’re supposed to be together for the rest of our lives, you’d think I wouldn’t have to drag you outside to spend time with me every other day.”
“Maybe if you stopped nagging me like we’re already mated, I would be more inclined to want to spend time with you.” 
You couldn’t stop the tears falling down your cheeks any less than your legs making a run for it at the slightest pushback from your mate-to-be. Running away was the only time you felt free anymore. You loved Ao’nung. He’s been in your life… well, your whole life. There was little of you that wasn’t tied back to him and there was little of him that wasn’t embedded in you. You grew up together, Tsireya’s best friend and confidant, Ronal’s long-lost daughter, it seemed. You might as well be, since your parents were never around anyway, not to raise you, or to teach you better than to accept such treatment from a boy, who had been sweet and kind to you all your life, until he realised you liked him, until he realised that no matter how little he gave, you would cling on to it for dear life, you would pretend a drop of water was a fountain, and that it could sustain your thirst until the next drop came. 
You didn’t stop until you hit the beach, that was deserted this time of night, and sat down on the warm, soft sand. You sighed, allowing yourself the kindness of respite, of crying it out without shame, without constraint, without being made to feel stupid for being soft. You felt so foolish, so used and yet somehow so useless, at the same time. You were deep in thought, so deep in your own sorrow, that felt like it was drowning you, keeping your head forcefully underwater until there was no more breath in your lungs, that you missed the steps tracking closer until a tall form was towering above you.
 
“Are you alright?”
You shot up and onto your feet, pried out of your anguished reverie and shaking from the scare of another person, at a time and place you thought you would have the safety of solitude. You immediately recognised the young man sitting across from you, the rhythmic bioluminescent waves shining over his face, making him glow with ethereal beauty unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. It was hard not to know who he was, as him and his family have been the talk of the village for a while now, the buzz surrounding their arrival constant and unending. Neteyam Te Suli Tsyeyk’itan, the son of Jake Sully, the Olo’eyktan of the Omatikaya and the Sixth ever Toruk Makto. Everybody knew his story, everybody admired him, for his valiant win over the demons that took so much from the Na’vi and from the Planet. Now there he was, in your village, with his whole family, asking for Uturu, asking for a new chance, asking to be trained in the Metkayina ways. 
Neteyam Sully was a beautiful man. Tall and muscular, his body was a deep shade of blue, so unlike your own, so unlike anything you’ve ever known. His stripes were even darker, an intense indigo that reminded you of the night sky, of the sea during a heavy storm, and the contrast was hypnotising, so hypnotising, in fact, you couldn’t stop the booming in your heart or the way you were shamelessly staring at his arms and chest. His hand went to your chin, and he brought your face upwards to get you to look in his eyes. You swore your breath stopped when he touched you, all of your 18 years of breath practice and your phenomenal control right out the window. His eyes were bright like the stars in the night sky, which might as well have been dull and pointless when compared to the freckles on his face, that shone brilliantly and moved upwards as his lips lifted in a soft smile. 
“Can you hear me?” 
You shook your head lightly, trying to push the thoughts out of your head and bring the sane ones back in. 
“Y-yes, I can. Sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. I just wanted to make sure you are alright. You seemed… upset.”
His hand didn’t drop from you chin, and his lingering touch sent shivers down your back that reached the tips of your fingers and toes before dissipating and being replaced with new ones, electrifying your entire being. 
This was wrong. You were promised to another man. To the future Olo’eyktan. You had no business getting shivers down your spine, no business getting lost in his eyes, no business feeling feelings you have never felt before, not with Ao’nung, not with anybody else. You took a step back and watched and his hand fell from your face limply besides his body. 
“I’m alright. Thank you for checking, you are very kind. I should probably go now. It’s late.” 
You didn’t look behind you as you passed him and headed hurriedly back towards the village, hoping this way you could outrun him, the emotions he evoked in you, the shame that followed and the guilt that you knew was lurking menacingly in the shadows. 
“I’m sorry for being such a dick. Forgive me?” 
The shell he was holding out in his palms was gorgeous, everything you liked about the world and the sea wrapped in a tiny, magical package. He knew what you liked, he knew you very well, a thought that made you despondent. If he knew you, that means he knew what he was doing to you. He knew the feelings that plagued you, feelings that he brought upon you, that his actions brought upon you, and he still did them - unapologetically, at least until the last second, when he came asking for forgiveness, which you granted every time. He raised an index finger to your chin and lifted your head and you couldn’t help the booming in your ears when the action reminded you of the Omatikaya boy and the night you’ve pointlessly tried your best to forget about the past couple of weeks. 
As your lips touched, a messy, sloppy kiss, filled with intention and need, you felt your heart drop to your stomach as not even this kiss, passionate as it was, invoked a fraction of the same reaction in your body as Neteyam’s one touch. Still, you loved Ao’nung. You always have. You were to be a mated pair soon. You were to be together…forever. He moaned as he deepened the kiss and you smiled at knowing, despite everything, it was you who made him feel this way. He might be acting out now, but he loved you, he wanted you. And one day, he’ll love you enough to show you in more ways than just the one. 
“I still have to teach the Omatikaya, how about you come with me?”
“NO!” 
Ao’nung looked at you curiously and tried to understand where this reaction was coming from. You knew you exaggerated and had to calm yourself if you were to not raise any suspicion. Not that there was anything to raise, you didn’t do anything wrong. And yet still, you couldn’t stop the nagging feeling, the lingering thought that you had to lie, that what happened had to stay between you and the eldest Sully. 
“I’d rather not, I have other things to do around the village anyway.”
Ao’nung scoffed and rolled his eyes irately. 
“You know, you keep saying we never spend time together, but then you pull this shit. I’m busy, you know? I can’t always entertain you whenever you want.” 
You felt the all-too-familiar sinking feeling take over your mind again, just like the tears that formed almost instantly at his words, threatening you, praying for one moment of weakness so they’d fall and make a mess out of you again. 
“Ao’nung… I come most times you ask. Every time you ask, in fact, which is very rarely. I just can’t right now. I’ll wait for you to come by my marui tonight. My parents aren’t home.” 
Why did you do that? Why did you ask him to come? He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve you. You made a promise, though. To the clan, to the Tsa’hik and Olo’eyktan. To him. It was an unbreakable promise, a sacred bond. You were mere weeks away from completing your Iknimaya, short time away from giving yourself to him, allowing him to do to you what you knew was the ultimate form of intimacy, what you’ve wondered about for years, what you’ve been craving for the last few weeks. 
You walked on the beach, the same beach, a beach most Metkayina didn’t come to, as it was out of the way and filled with big rocks and greenery that took away from the beauty of it all and the usual uninterrupted patch golden sand which people liked to lie on, to feel, as it grazed their sea-green skin. You hoped the walk would clear your mind, a hope that quickly vanished from sight as a certain cerulean Na’vi tapped you gently on the shoulder, making you jump out of your skin. He laughed softly, his sharp, pronounced canines coming swiftly into view, and you felt a sudden urge to touch them, to see if they were indeed as sharp as they looked. Could they draw blood? Could they pierce your skin easily, as they grazed over you, over your neck, over your -
“Sorry I scared you. I was hoping I’d run into you again.”
“I…” you took a deep breath in a futile effort to calm your nerves. “I thought you were training with Ao’nung.” 
He eyed you intently, his gaze trailing over your face and landing on your lips. You opened them slightly to accommodate the deeper breaths you felt the need to take, like your body needed an increase in its oxygen intake to keep up with the intensity of his presence. 
“I was, but my dad needed me for something. I’m on my way there now.” 
Your hand felt like it caught on fire as his fingers wrapped around it, lifting it up in front of you until your palm was facing upwards and he dropped a bracelet in it, closing your hand with a touch of his hand and letting you go. 
“You lost this, that night on the beach? I have been meaning to give it back to you, but you have a way of eluding me, it seems.” 
You opened your hand again and inspected the item that was now residing in it. It was a bracelet you got as a gift when you were much younger, when your mateship with Ao’nung was first announced. Your shoulders dropped at its sight. It was pretty, and ornate, and a bitter reminder of what was beautiful and has now soured through time, like fruit left outside on a hot day. 
“Thank you. I appreciate you finding it for me. It’s very precious to me.”
He chuckled a little, unable to keep the sarcasm from coating his tongue. 
“Is it? It’s been weeks since you’ve lost it, and the way you reacted makes me think you didn’t even realise it was gone.”
You took a step back at his words and felt your ears flattening in response. Your dour expression must have taken him by surprise, just like his words did you, because he took a step towards you and spoke. 
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to infer. You know better than me what this means to you. It was rude of me, and I apologise.” 
You couldn’t help staring at him once more, wide-eyed and bushy tailed, unable to understand the words that were coming out of his mouth. He… apologised? He said something untoward and he just… apologised? You don’t think this has ever happened to you. You didn’t think that was possible, not to you, at least. Other girls, your friends, had mates like that, had relationships that were… well, happy. They were happy, and filled with love and lust and passion, with sleepless nights and midnight swims, with lingering touches and anticipating gazes, filled with feelings of flickering flames and wondrous woes, filled with so many things you’ve never felt before, with all the things you were feeling right in this second. 
“So you are Ao’nung’s mate?”
Why was he asking you this? Why now?
“Mate-to-be.” You whispered, knowing that if your voice was any louder, it would be shaky and breathy. 
He nodded to himself, looking deep in thought as his eyes darted to your much smaller body and then over in the distance, at the waves crashing on the beach. 
“Why are you asking, Neteyam?” 
His step faltered a little as you said his name, but he regained his composure almost immediately, falling back into step with you, as if it never happened. His face gave little away, although his tail was moving behind you furiously, running up and down the back of your thighs in their haphazard motion. You felt heat pool in the pits of your abdomen at the quick brush of the soft appendix, that you tried to will away to no avail. 
“Take care of yourself. I should go train with your mate.” 
And just like that he left, leaving you to deal with your chagrinned heart and leering mind, all on your own. 
He didn’t show. Once more, you waited for hours in your tent, until way past eclipse, and your mate didn’t show. You were crying in your hammock, trying to undo the hurt in your heart, hoping that if you cry hard enough it will just escape through your tears duct and be gone from your body once and for all. You were playing with the bracelet he gave you so long ago, cursing it and cursing him for the years of hurt and pain, the years of broken promises and shattered expectations, and with newfound determination, you dropped it on the floor and left for your beach. 
You were a little surprised when you found Neteyam sitting peacefully on the beach, looking into the darkness that enveloped the sea for the night, only the glimmer of the bioluminescent plankton being hit by the soft waves visible. You swallowed audibly, and made your way to this man you had some sort of unspoken connection to, trying to ignore the way your heart thumped in your chest at the mere sight of him. 
His ears twitched as he made out your presence, but he didn’t made any effort to acknowledge it otherwise. 
“He didn’t show, did he?”
“H-how did you…?”
“I overheard you. In the morning.” He got up and turned around to face you, a fervid look on his face that made your legs quiver and push together to accommodate the feeling growing in between your thighs. 
“Why were you so adamant about not coming training with us?”
“I was… busy.” 
His body got closer to you, closer and closer, regardless of how many steps back you were taking, regardless of the fact that you made every effort to get away from his presence that overwhelmed your every sense, clouded your every critical thought and replaced it with a blabbering mess of heightened emotion and need. You gasped loudly when your back hit the trunk of a tree and you realised there was nowhere to go anymore. No place to hide, nothing to do but deal with it, with him. 
“You’re lying. Don’t lie to me.”
His beautiful aureate eyes were fixed on your face, an ardent, hungry look haunting them, haunting you. Your knees were weak and wobbly, cowering under the weight of his presence, under the weight of the lust washing over you. His hands raised to your face, and the rough calloused feel of his fingertips made you pant, made you fantasise about how they would feel against other parts of you that desperately craved attention. 
What are you doing? This is wrong. This is so wrong. 
“He doesn’t deserve you.”
You knew as his face was closing in on yours that you were doomed, that you didn’t have it in you to stop him, that you didn’t want to stop him. You knew that this kiss would mark a point of no return, a path of illicit affairs and unspeakable secrets, and that nothing could ever take it back, but you didn’t care. You wanted to know what it felt like, to be wanted, to be owned, to feel special.
His lips were nothing like his hands, instead they felt feathery and soft, and he tasted sweet, like a ripened fruit or like a child’s laughter. The kiss was hungry and needy, like you were, and your lips were brushing over each other, devouring any ounce of sanity still left in you as his tongue trailed over your lips and into your mouth, and you welcomed him with your own, allowing yourself to taste him, allowing him to taste you, to explore you. 
“I want you. I want you so badly, I want you to know what you do to me. I want to show you what you deserve.”
He broke the kiss to place new, wet ones along your jaw and down your neck, and your couldn’t help the moan that escaped you and the way your head threw back, chest heaving at the sensation, at his maddening words. His lips were roaming your body, licking and sucking and biting on every inch of your torso and abdomen, like he was uncovering uncharted territory and wanted to know every secret within it. He knelt in front of you as he reached your hips, and you found yourself using the very limited amount of critical thinking you still had to push his head away from where you knew he was headed, from where you desperately wanted him, from where you knew he couldn’t be. 
“No. We can’t. This is wrong.”
“Yes. Yes, we can. You can, and you should. You should see what you’re missing out on by being promised to him. Let me show you how good it can be. How good I can make you feel.” 
He tightened his hand around one of your thighs and plopped it on his shoulder and then wrapped his fingers in the waistband of your loincloth, untying it easily. You groaned as the breeze hit your now uncovered core and shut your eyes tightly when the sight made Neteyam let out a wild, throaty moan that made you feral. 
“Look at that. You’re already ready for me. You’re dripping wet, that’s how badly you want this. How can something that feels this good ever be wrong?” 
You were a hyperventilating mess as his face got so close to your folds, you could feel his warm breath on you. A kiss is all it took for you to melt under his touch, for all reason to leave your being, every memory of your promised mate erased from your mind, like he never existed. Like nothing ever existed outside of this man, outside of the feelings he evoked in you. He pushed his tongue inside of you and you pushed out unintelligible noises, that got louder the harder he thrusted in you, the more his lips moved fluidly and skilfully on you, sucking and biting until the pleasure was coiling inside of you like a spring ready to give out at any blow of the wind. His tongue was swiftly replaced with a finger, and the foreign sensation made you squeeze your legs together as you discovered it, as you revelled in it. 
“You’re taking it so well, baby girl. So well. Think you can do one more finger?” 
You had no words, no words could be formulated in your state, so you just nodded aggressively, bucking your hips against him and he chuckled. 
“So needy. Needy for my fingers, huh?” 
He didn’t wait for an answer as he retracted his middle finger and pushed it back in, adding the ring finger, until he reached a spot that made you scream out, eyes rolling in the back of your head. 
“That’s it, that’s the spot. Feel good? You like being fingered, you like my mouth on this needy cunt, huh?”
His words made you a mewling mess, and you felt the pressure in your core build up and you knew it was building up towards a release that would take everything out you, that would ruin you, just like he was ruining you. 
“I can feel you squeezing my fingers. I want to see you come, I want to taste your cum on my tongue, baby girl. Come for me. Show me how good I make you feel.”
His tongue found his way back to your clit, licking and sucking while maintaining an unrelenting pace of his fingers and with little warning, your orgasm washed over you like a rogue wave in the middle of an ocean of pleasure, overtaking you, drowning you in him, in this feeling you never wanted to end. 
He smirked as he got up and kissed you, and you loved the taste of yourself on him, loved it in all its unholy, nefarious, sinful glory. His thumb brushed your lips as he spoke.
“One day, you’re going to beg me to fuck you. And I’ll do it so well, you will never be able to get me out of your mind, never be able to touch yourself again without an image of my cock slipping in and out of you ingrained in your brain.” 
He walked away without looking at you. 
“Sleep well.” 
pt. 2? maybe? maybe not?
2K notes · View notes
loliwrites · 20 days
Text
October: I'll Be The Moon
part three of fountain of sorrow
Tumblr media
pairing: javier peña x f!reader  rating: explicit, 18+ minors dni  warnings/tags: set between s2 & s3, early/mid ‘90s, single mother [reader has a young daughter][child won’t play a massive role], lots of f bombs, some dude gets a lil handsy, BAR FIGHT w/ a little blood, terrible exes, SMUT, unprotected p in v sex, fingering, soft sex, creampie, hand restraint [just by other hands], praise kink, catching feelings, cigarettes [are bad for you], one use of bitch [directed at javi], one use of slut [directed at reader], pre during and post-sex photos, terms of endearment [querida, good girl], female reader, no physical description, protective!javi, no use of y/n. word count: 7.4k series masterlist a/n: switching pov’s in this one. hope y’all are enjoying!
Two and a half months. That’s what it had taken for Javi to realize something was different. Previous women had been lucky if they lasted half as long. He generally wasn’t one for follow-through outside of work. And when he tried to pinpoint what exactly it had been that tipped the scales, it was an exercise in futility. It was just that he’d woken up on this particular Saturday – the weekend before Halloween – with a pang in his gut knowing that you’d be tied up the following weekend with the muñequita and your baby daddy. He’d questioned that… the baby daddy aspect of it… and tried not to sound too jealous or too offended. Doubt crept in that he hadn’t been too convincing.
Maybe it had been because his dad had started asking questions. What’re you doing on weekends? You never answer your phone. How come you never go to The Tack Room with us anymore? What girl have you got on the end of your line now? Oh, if Chucho only knew it was the chiquita on the end of Javi’s line, he’d probably have him drawn and quartered.
Or maybe it had been that night last weekend where, after laying side by side in the orgasmic afterglow, you’d turned into him, curled your hand around his shaft, batted those pretty please eyelashes at him, and did your best damsel in distress act about how the Halloween decorations were in boxes in the attic. Too heavy, too big for little ol’ you to carry down by yourself. And though it was already two in the morning (and you promised a thank you blowjob), he’d never moved faster to climb up into an attic, sift through the dust and cobwebs for the plastic bins holding skeletons and bats and little witches. Truth was he would’ve done it for you even without the blowjob offer; a point made evident when after he’d set the bins in the living room, you sank to your knees in front of him to pay up, only to be confused when he also sank to his knees. And instead of allowing any sort of sexual progression, he dragged the first of the plastic tubs between you and yanked the lid off. The muñequita will be happy to see the house decorated for Halloween.
All Javier knew was that by the time he was sitting at the bar on this Saturday night, something was stirring in him that was getting increasingly hard to pinpoint or ignore. If not only for himself, but because ever since his little shutdown last month – the let’s not talk about Colombia shutdown – you’d done an exemplary job of keeping things pure business. The sex was… efficient, for lack of a better word. Small talk was nonexistent. Any question that may have had you curious never saw the light of day. And except for the little favors here and there, nothing personal ever came up. He didn’t know how, but you were too good at it. Especially at the bar.
Which is why tonight… Javier had his beer bottle clutched in his hands. White-knuckled in a firm grasp. He’s surprised the thing didn’t shatter. He could understand that it was a job. He’d been around enough working girls to know that sometimes getting better tips meant flirting with the patrons. And he knew he had no reason to feel any sort of possessive. You weren’t his; he’d made sure of that when he shut you down and told you that this was just sex. Maybe it was only because this guy wouldn’t leave you the fuck alone.
He was a couple barstools down from Javi. No one sat between them, much to Javi’s chagrin. He couldn’t have ignored this guy even if he was so inclined. But this asshole… Robert, you called him… was way too much of everything with you. At least in Javi’s eyes. He was too flirty with you. Too monopolizing of your time. Too goddamn touchy. All the times Robert reached over and touched your hand or arm was one thing. Javi didn’t think it appropriate but it didn’t make him want to knock him out. 
But the times when you walked out from behind the bar, drink tray in your hand, and Robert let his hand brush over your backside… too much. To you, Robert was just the drunk that hung out way too much at the bar. But he was also the drunk that tipped you way too much and you weren’t about to tell him not to. Was it demeaning to have him groping you… maybe. And normally you wouldn’t let it happen. But the money…
The first time it happened, Javi nearly got out of his seat, but he was given pause when you turned around and faced Robert. He thought you were going to knock him to the floor. But instead, you only shot him a playfully disapproving glance and shook your head before carrying on with the task you’d set out to do in the first place. And that… Javi knew that wasn’t going to be the end of it. The second time it happened, Robert had gotten brave with a firm hand placement on your ass. That time you turned around and gently chastised him. Something like, “Robert,” your voice elongated the first vowel in his name. But the drunk just giggled and acted like a little innocent boy. Javi, however, felt his blood boiling.
But the third time it happened. Game over. You’d come out from behind the bar again, this time to clear off some tables littered with empty glasses and bottles. And Robert, not having learned from your previous two gentle reminders to keep his hands to himself, reached out again, this time giving your backside a pinch. The time between your surprised shriek and Javi getting off his stool, wrapping his fist around the collar of Robert’s shirt, was miniscule. 
“Don’t fucking touch her,” Javi growled, yanking on Robert’s shirt. The man, already unstable, stumbled backwards but not to the floor.
The one benefit of your past relationship – and working in the bar – was that you’d learned rather quickly how to de-escalate drunk, testosterone-ridden men. But instead of going to Robert, you went toward Javi, pushing on his arm. “Peña, stop.”
“Get off me, bitch,” Robert slurred at Javier.
Javi’s focus, which had only momentarily been on you, almost annoyed that you were telling him to stop, was now back on Robert. “How many times she have to tell ya’ to stop, fuckin’ creep?” Javi maintained he still did the right thing. If the situation had presented itself again, he would’ve done the same exact thing. Cocked his fist back in the same way. Made contact with Robert’s nose the same way. And stood over him the same way as Robert clutched at his bloodied, broken nose while now on the floor. “If I ever see you touch a woman here ever again…”
“Javier!”
His eyes shot over to you, finding pure fury. You stepped in front of him and pushed him back with all your might. He only went back a step, which you figured was more due to his cooperation than your strength.
“Get out of here, Peña!” You yelled right at him, but instead of getting a move on, he went to open his mouth to rebut. “Go home, Javi!”
❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖
Something was up with Javi. You’d noticed it first after he’d turned down your blowjob offer after getting the Halloween decorations from the attic. He had never turned down a blowjob before. Usually it was a matter of how quickly you could get your mouth open. And just when you might’ve started to think that his attraction to you was waning, he’d give you the most mind-shattering orgasm. Which begged the question: what was up with Javier Peña?
It also struck you as odd that although he didn’t stop going to The Tack Room completely, you’d made an observation that he no longer came on the nights Chucho came around. You’d still see him at your house after work, but he didn’t show up at the bar to hang out when his dad also happened to be there. Which maybe was for the better considering Javier fucking Peña decked one of your largest tippers tonight. And had Chucho seen his son do that, you had the notion that he might just ship Javi back to Colombia, free of charge to Uncle Sam. And as if just punching the guy wasn’t bad enough, Robert’s face was busted. Lip split, nose broken. Blood poured from new holes Javi had punched into his face. 
You’d told him to get out of there. To go home. But you knew you’d see him outside your house that night. Would’ve bet your life’s savings on it, and would’ve doubled it because when you pulled up that night, Javi was sitting on the porch step – the same place you’d seen him that first day with your daughter. As soon as you threw the car in park on the driveway, he was standing up, brushing his palms on the back of his pants. Time had visibly calmed him down but it had only riled you up.
“What the fuck were you thinking?! Do you know how much that guy tips me?!”
Javier approached you, holding up his hands in front of his chest. “I’m sorry,”
“Do you know how much he tips me?!”
Whatever calmness time had given Javi, you were managing to pull him out of it. Your elevated level… not to mention your apparent biggest qualm being how much money you were going to lose out on… brought him to a spot he wasn’t prepared to go. At least, not with you. 
“You let him touch you so he’ll tip you better?” Javi pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and sifted through it until he produced a hundred dollar bill, “if money’s what you want, I’ll put it on your dresser before we fuck!”
“Fuck you, Javi!
“Fuck me?! I defended you and the only person you got mad at was me! How about the fucker that was grabbing your ass all night?”
You got up in his face, ready and way too willing to continue this argument. Had you just taken a moment… a millisecond… to think, you probably would’ve chosen a different path. “How do you know I didn’t want him grabbing my ass?”
There was a chance steam was coming out of Javi’s ears at this point. If you’d been a medical professional, you might’ve asked that he sit down, put his head between his knees, and take a few deep breaths. But you were not a medical professional, you were just pissed. And that last statement? After the steam had fully evacuated Javi’s ears, he scrubbed his hands over his face and shook his head.
“Okay,” he kept his fingers over his mouth and shook his head again. “Then go fuck that guy. I can’t do this anymore,”
Your heart dropped into your stomach. You’d wanted a fight. Maybe some hot, angry sex. But you didn’t want him to back off completely. And judging by everything you knew about him, you didn’t think he’d back off so easily. “It’s just sex. Who cares if I get it from you or someone else?” Even that sounded a little meaner than you hoped it would.
Javier shook his head and let his arms drop back down to his sides, emphatically. “‘cause I’m not gettin’ it from anyone else,”
“That’s not my problem,”
“Yes it is,” he insisted and glared at you. “I’m stickin’ up for you. And I’m decorating your house for Halloween. And I’m fuckin’ jealous you’re spending next weekend with your ex.”
A smile crept over your face, and though you did your best to hide it – to not let Javi think you weren’t taking him seriously – you knew he’d pick up on it. It was kind of endearing that Mr. Famous Playboy was jealous.
He tilted his head to the side, “don’t look at me like that,” he begged.
But you continued to. In fact, you let your smile widen as you closed the gap and pressed your hands against his stomach.
“Quit it,”
You giggled and curled your fingers into the fabric of his shirt. “You wanna come inside?”
He wrapped his arm around your waist and held you close. Fingers dragged absent designs at your lower back. “Only if you promise me something,” an earnest smile stretched over his lips. “Never sleep with that guy,”
“What guy?” You beamed.
“Good girl,” he patted your ass and turned on his heels with you. 
You unlocked the front door as quickly as your shaky fingers would allow. Maybe angry sex wouldn’t be happening tonight, but something potentially even better would be. Make up sex. It was unmarked territory with Javi. Up until now, there wasn’t anything to make up for. Up until now, outside of the ‘him being inside you’ part, the sex hadn’t been very personal. He’d made sure of that.
But now he was up in front of you and it felt so much different than all the other times. You’d found yourself cornered up against the wall in your entryway, Javi standing right in front of you. His knee had made a spot for itself in between your legs but his hands… they’d never been so gentle before. Slow hands. At one time they brushed over your skin without acknowledging the scars, marks, and blemishes that made up the entirety of you. But this time… they floated over skin with the lightest of touches, taking their time in exploring the expanse of you. Even the way he kissed you with the caution and hesitancy of someone not as sure of themselves. There was the fleeting thought that he’d remember who he was – what his intent was – and he’d pick up to the ravaging he was known for. Though he never did. Not tonight. Not as he cupped his hands around either side of your neck and used his gentle hold on it to lead you away from the wall and toward your bedroom. Not as his forward momentum was only thwarted when the back of your legs hit your mattress and he leaned his body over you, crawling forward to work you further up the bed. Not even when he’d gotten you fully reclined, with his knees straddling your legs, and started to help you undress. Fabric peeled from your body with the same amount of care painters took to canvas… sculptors to marble.
Shirt discarded to the side in an instant and his lips to your chest the next. Soft kisses traced your clavicle until his mouth met the notch at the base of your neck, then carried over across the other. Your hands migrated up over his shoulders and to the hair at the nape of his neck with gentle tugs. Maybe that’d get him to pick things up. 
But he was not to be riled. Even the act of you reaching behind your back and unclasping your bra was met with little acceleration. Javier simply reached up and pulled the now useless garment away from your body. Put his lips in its place. Let his tongue roll over your nipple until it pebbled in his mouth. And you pulled on the ends of his hair again, this time with more force until he relented and lifted his head. Stared at you with hooded, confused eyes.
“What?”
“What’re you doing?”
Javi looked down at your breasts and took a deep breath before he looked back up at you, “what?”
“There’s suspiciously no fingers, tongue, or dick between my legs,”
“M’getting you ready for me. I always do that,” he bowed his head and pressed his lips back to your chest, but when you pulled on his hair again for his focus, he groaned. “What?”
“You don’t need to. I’ve been wet since you punched that guy in the face,”
Javier’s jaw dropped. His eyes widened. Pure surprise raced through him. “You yelled at me for that and your fuckin’ pussy’s drippin’?!”
“Okay,” you positioned your hands on his chest and pushed against him, “you don’t have to be crass.” The distance you’d put between you by pushing on his chest was quickly made up for when you curled your fingers into the fabric of his shirt and pulled him back toward you. “Don’t go slow,”
Your hands tucked lower beneath the hem of his shirt, nudging it upwards until your fingers met his chest and he was all but forced to take it off completely. It soon joined yours at the end of the bed. But when your hands went for his belt, he snatched them away and lifted them above your head. You stared up at him, smirking, when he dropped his weight to you and pinned wrists down.
“Don’t be impatient. Let me take my time,” he pecked your lips and grinned when he pulled back and you jut your bottom lip out in a pout. “Put that lip away,” he ducked his head into the side of your neck and bit into your skin. “Just let me make you feel good,”
“You can do that without going so slow,”
Javi pushed himself up and sat back on his knees. Skilled fingers worked on the button and zipper of your jeans, “keep runnin’ your mouth and you’re not gonna get anything.”
“Peña–”
“Shhh, querida. Just take it easy,”
Convinced you would be – at least for a little while – he stripped you out of your jeans. As he continued on, leaning back over you and nudging the fabric of your underwear to the side so he could feel the proof of what you’d already told him, you realized the slow progress wasn’t as snail-like as you’d first complained about. It wasn’t that it was slow as much as it was intentional. For the first time in the two months you’d had this routine, it was settling in that this was Javier acting on something other than animal autopilot.
His lips came back to yours and took you into a searing kiss. His teeth nipped at your bottom lip. Tongue searched for entrance into your mouth, undeterred. Fingers found the opening they were looking for, too. Pushed into the tightness of your core and didn’t stop their forward motion until they were down to the last knuckle. Your jaw dropped, eyes fluttered open to find Javi’s already in a hungry stare at you. His mouth hung open over yours, sharing breaths as he curled his fingers inside you and brushed the tips against your gspot. A coo left your body, and the smirk that crossed over Javi’s face was undeniable. He had you right where he wanted you.
“Told you I’d make you feel good,”
You spread your legs further apart to give him as much free, open space as possible. Catching his lips for another kiss, the unhurried pace of his mouth and fingers was going to have you spiraling far quicker than you’d like to admit. Tongues lapped and rolled against each other in a battle both wanted to win but would gladly lose. And then he brushed his thumb over your clit, and you all but thought that was going to be your undoing. The way your legs flinched together around his hand, and the way every muscle in your body seemed to flex at once. Then, for better or worse, Javi eased his fingers out of you. Kept his eyes on you for any sign of too much discomfort, of which he only clocked a little. He backed off the bed until he was able to stand at the foot of it and rid himself of his jeans, all too thankful for the vision of you snaking your hand down your body. Fingers drifted past your breasts, to your stomach, and beneath the lace of your underwear to slide the flimsy fabric off your body. It caught on one of your ankles but you hardly paid it any attention; choosing to replace your fingers on your clit and massage yourself, equally thankful for the vision Javier was giving you. Of his hand wrapped around his shaft, jerking himself off with long, steady strokes. The sinewy muscles of his chest, shoulder, and bicep strained against his skin, and knelt back on the bed again. He used his unoccupied hand to free your ankle from your lacy underwear. 
Removing your fingers from your clit, you stretched your body out beneath him, grinning like a mad fool for the sight of him above you. For the way his sheer size and presence made you feel small; made for him to take at his whim. He released his member as he was now fully hard. The vein that ran along the underside of his length more prominent than before, and he lowered himself until the tops of his thighs were pressed against the backs of yours. His cock rest against your belly. From base to tip, he measured up to your belly button. A fact that was not lost on you as he held it in place as if to drive that point home.
“Camera,”
You flicked your glassy eyes up to his face, “what?”
“Where’s the camera?”
You swallowed, chest swelling with heat. You obliged, even if just to avoid his piercing gaze, and outstretched your arm toward the nightstand. He seemed to understand and bent over to carry on the plight. Though you watched carefully as he took the Polaroid out of the drawer and then quickly returned to his spot on his knees between your legs. Javi angled the camera downward, jaw slackening as he focused on the image in the viewfinder: Your breasts full and resting free all the way down to where your waists met. His length on full display for reference against your body. 
He snapped the photo and handed the grayed out picture to you. It was in your hands for just a second before he dipped his hips and sheathed himself inside your core. His eyebrows furrowed together and with the little coordination he had left in him, he set the camera down on the bed beside you.
“Javi,” you moaned out. It floated into nothingness in the space between you.
A groan released from his chest and he lowered himself to you, chest pressed to yours and his hands cupped together on top of your head, cradling you there beneath him. “Jesus Christ, you always feel so good,”
You grazed your teeth along his jaw until he lowered his head a little bit more, making it conducive for you to kiss him again. His hips began their slow thrusts forward. Each one only pulling himself out halfway before burying himself back in to the hilt. Little puffs of breath escaped your lungs each time he filled you back up.
“So big,” you whispered into his lips. The next thrust had his tip pressing against your cervix and you pressed your head further into the pillow, turning it to the side to catch your breath. His mouth went for your neck at first exposure. “You fill me up so good,”
The continued closeness of his hips on yours meant the friction against your clit was pretty much nonstop. Each pass of his body strung you higher and higher, and in an attempt to ground yourself, you reached up to curl your arms around Javier’s shoulders. The photo you hadn’t even bothered to look at yet discarded on the bed. But he all too quickly robbed you of that opportunity, and gathered both of your wrists in one of his large, strong hands. You whimpered at the lack of contact, but it then turned into a delighted hum when he lifted your hands up above your head and kept them pinned in place with his strong grasp.
“Worth the wait?” He chuckled.
You imagined the expression on your face showed pure bliss. Your pulse had already begun to pound, feeling it in your cheeks, ears, temples. Lips swollen and begging to be kissed. “Fuck me, Javi,” 
He smiled to himself, your eyes having drifted shut. There was one particularly hard and deep thrust before there was nothing at all. His hand no longer on your wrists. Chest and stomach no longer against yours. He wasn’t even inside you anymore. And that had you opening your eyes, whimpering, reaching blindly for him until you realized he’d sat back on his knees to get you in a different position. Limp for him to maneuver however he pleased, you shrieked when he wrapped his arms around your thighs and pulled you back into him. Then taking one of your ankles, he crossed it in front of his body until your lower half was twisted to the side, legs pressed flush together. Contorted like this, your upper half was still mostly in the position it had been in before, just a little more turned to accommodate for the twisted angle of your spine and hips. 
Javi grabbed onto your ass and tugged it gently to give himself a better view when he sunk his length back into you. You winced and let out a sharp cry when he pushed himself balls deep; your body struggling to acclimate to his full size at this angle. Through he reached for the camera again, his eyes never left your face.
“Y’alright?” he murmured, winding the camera up.
“Too big,” you panted out, trying to relax yourself around him.
He held the camera up and took another picture. This one he didn’t even bother removing after it printed. Just set the whole thing back down on the bed. “You can do it, querida,” he grinned and set his hands back on your ass, using the leverage to rock himself in and out of you slowly. He could feel your body fighting him still, but just as he was about to say the words, your instinct beat him to it. Your fingers pressed between your legs and began rubbing your clit. It moderately helped. It being slightly easier for him to push into you, “atta girl.”
“Javi,” you whined and pulled your hand away from your clit, moving it to instead wrap it around his wrist. “Javi,”
“Tell me,”
You swallowed harshly, fingernails digging into his skin, “this is no good for–”
But he was already pulling out of you and grabbing your ankle before you could finish. He placed your leg over his shoulder as he bent back down toward you. Both his hands planted on the mattress by your shoulders. He pushed back into you and immediately caught the moan it pulled.
“Better,” you smiled breathlessly and returned your hand to your clit to match the steady pace he set. “Good. So good,”
“God, you’re just…” Javi’s breath caught in his throat and the muscles in his stomach flexed, “so fuckin’ tight.”
You reached up for him until he obliged and leaned in closer to you. It nudged him deeper inside you and kept him there. “Come inside me,”
He shook his head and moved one hand from the bed to your neck; fingers loose. “Not before you,”
“Please. Javi, please,” you let out a needy moan and tilted your head back against the pillow, elongating your neck.
Javi growled and curled his fingers against your neck, grip tightening as he fought with himself whether to listen to you or not. Truthfully, he was hanging on by a goddamn thread. It wasn’t that he wasn’t close. It was that he didn’t want to get in the habit of coming first.
“Javi,” you begged.
“Are you close?”
“Yes. Please,” you purposefully squeezed yourself around him, pulling his shaft deeper. “Just want to feel all of it inside me first,”
He wanted to think about it while he had the chance. While he could hold out. But then your body fluttered involuntarily around him and his heart almost stopped. His hips stuttered, he bit back a deep, guttural moan, and then not being able to stop it if he tried, he came, rope after rope of his spend coating your walls.
“Fuck,” he muttered, feeling his member twitch inside of you. And normally, he’d be able to catch his breath. Take a minute and pull out of you. But now you were writhing beneath him, grabbing at the sheets and white-knuckling them. Though normally his body would prepare to wind down, there was only one thing he wanted now, and he’d do anything to get it. He laid his weight on top of you, his head beside yours, mouth pressed to your ear, “come all over me, querida. Let me feel you squeeze me.”
Your body began to tremble and a whimper tore through your chest.
“Show me what a good girl you are. Give it all to me,”
Clutching on to him with all your might, your arms wrapped around his rib cage, you hung on for dear life as your orgasm ripped through you. Your thighs flinched tighter to his hips. Silent pleas that he’d stay deep inside you. And you buried your face into the base of his neck, muffling the scream that came from deep within.
Throughout it all, Javi keep his soft, filthy whispers in your ear. Talked you through the entirety of your climax until you were a breathless, sweaty heap laying limp beneath him. And even then, he kept himself right where he was, lips at your ear; his hand cupped around your waist with fingertips drawing light circles on the small of your back.
“Atta girl, querida,” he pecked your neck, taking deep breaths so you’d try to align your breathing to his. “That’s my good girl,”
That had you moving again. Your hands gripped into his side with a little more purpose. Lips laid tender kisses to his shoulder. He lifted his head and kissed you intently. Slowly. Happy to take his time here, even as his member grew softer inside you.
“Can I take another picture of you?” He whispered and waited for you to nod. Only then did he pull out of you, eyes locked onto your core. His fingers searched the bed until they found the camera again. “Turn over for me,” he smiled when you immediately stirred to obey, “chest down, ass up.”
You shook your head and let out a quick giggle, “pervert.” Yet still did as you were told. Turned over on the bed and kept your chest pressed against the mattress with your back end higher than the rest of your body.
Javi removed the previous photo from the camera – the one of you on your side, your body seductively twisted and contorted for him. He wound the camera and then held it up to his eye with one hand. Then, using the other he smacked your ass once before taking it in a firm grip and pulled your cheek to the side. “Let me see it,”
“Hmm?” You turned your head to the side.
“Let me see it. Push it out,”
Your face grew warmer at his request. Yet again, you didn’t take a second to think before obeying him. Wanting absolutely nothing more than to keep hearing him say good girl, you clenched your muscles until you could feel the mixture of yours and his come seeping out of you. The sound of the Polaroid capturing the moment came next.
“Javi,” you moaned. The feeling of his come dripping down you, stirring you up all over again. 
But his hand was on you next. Two fingers started at your swollen clit and worked their way up your slit to gather the come you’d pushed out. And when he pushed it back into your spent hole, you let out another exasperated moan. “I know,” he whispered and playfully thrust his fingers into you, pushing his come back inside, deep. 
Only once he pulled them out, did you turn over and flop back down to your back. He was crawling up to lay beside you, having collected the three photos he’d taken of you tonight. And you’d curled into his side, head resting on his chest as he showed them off to you, the last of which still developing and growing clearer and raunchier with each passing second. Just the sight of it… and knowing it was you… with his come… you buried your face in his chest nervously. 
Javier laughed and kissed the top of your head. He set the pictures down beside him and used his now free hands to wrap around you, holding you close. “Feel good?”
You nodded against his chest, “feel great.”
He smiled and took a deep breath which he held, thinking. It stirred you enough to look up at him, finding him contemplative. But your gaze was unwavering and he decided to bite the bullet. “You know, I never see you when the sun’s up,”
“I’m busy when the sun’s up,”
Javi nodded. “Maybe I can take you out sometime. During the day,”
You rolled over onto your back, “you know I can’t next weekend.”
“Another weekend, then.”
What came next was a cruel, cruel turn of events because you wanted to give him a resounding yes. A sure thing. An absolute. But before you could answer, the doorbell chimed, reverberating noise through your house. You and Javi both looked at the bedroom door as if that’d tell you everything you needed to know about the person at the front door. But after a second, the doorbell rang again, and this time, Javi slid his arm out from underneath you. He was halfway up before you pulled on his arm.
“Stay here,” you rose out of bed and walked to the small closet, pulling from it a thin cotton robe. Javi wondered what that garment would do in terms of concealing your body, but you were out of the room too quickly for him to ask, and pulled the bedroom door shut behind you.
Trapped behind a door, Javi strained his ears for any information to clue him in on who was there. He wondered if it was your ex. And if it was, Javi wondered if he’d amble out of your room and sidle up beside you. That thought had him fully out of bed and pulling his pants up his legs again. But he soon realized it wasn’t. No, because he heard the muñequita’s voice ring through the walls and he figured it was your mom at the door.
Javi looked at the clock on your nightstand when he figured he should probably hide the photos he’d taken tonight with the rest that you’d previously taken of him. And he kept staring at the clock, wondering when you’d come back to him. Wondered if he should just walk out without a care of who was there to see him. Ultimately he didn’t though. Just as you’d done as he asked tonight, he did as you asked. Sat at the edge of the bed and waited until you finally came back.
The bedroom door creaked open and you slipped inside, taking the utmost care to close the door so slowly that virtually no noise came from it. Javi stood as you neared him again and pressed your hands to his chest. 
“I forgot her dad’s coming over tomorrow morning. It’s his day with her,”
Javi nodded, trying to be as understanding as possible. “I didn’t know he got any days with her,”
You nodded, “be my guest to take that up with the judge.”
He sensed you weren’t thrilled at all with the situation, and the only thing he knew to do in this moment other than go full DEA, was to try to comfort you. He lifted his hand and cupped it over the back of your head, guiding you into him. Scritching through your hair, he kissed the top of your head and let the silence wash over you both.
But you tilted up and set your chin down against his chest, “you wanna stay tonight?”
Javi pursed his lips and cupped his hands over your cheeks. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,”
“I don’t know if coming inside me is a good idea but you do it anyway.”
Got him.
❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖
By the time Javi woke the next morning, you were already out of bed. Squinting through the sunlight that filtered in from the window, he glanced at the clock on the nightstand and noted it wasn’t that he was rising late, but you had risen early. And judging by your slightly elevated voice elsewhere in the house, he figured you were running around, trying to get the muñequita ready before her dad showed up to scoop her away.
Though he’d been kept in the bedroom last night, he decided that didn’t carry over into the daylight. Searching the floor for his shirt, he picked it up and slid it back over his shoulders. He did up the buttons and gave himself a passing glance in the mirror on his way out of the room. The muñequita’s voice grew louder as he ambled down the hallway, and he turned the corner for the kitchen, where he came face to face with her sitting at the table. You stood behind her, fighting with her fidgeting to tie her hair up in pigtails.
“Hey!” 
You looked up and followed the direction of her outstretched arm to find Javi at the end of it, in the threshold. He was clothed at least, but you’d been hoping he’d stay out of sight until it was just the two of you in the house again.
“Hey muñequita,” he strode into the kitchen and reached out to take her hand. He served to keep her still enough so you could finish tying her hair up.
“Why are you in our house?”
Javier opened his mouth but looked back up at you in the same moment, finding that your expression was much less chill than his was. He nodded subtly, quiet submission to you knowing the muñequita was still awaiting an answer.
“Go get your shoes on. Your dad’s gonna be here soon,” 
Without argument, she hopped off the chair and ran out of the kitchen. Her little feet padding their way down the wood floor until she reached her bedroom door and nudged it open with a creak. But your eyes were back on Javi in an instant, frustration rising. “What the fuck, Peña?”
He smirked and side stepped you, having locked on to the drip coffee pot on the counter, full and ready to be consumed. “What?” He opened the cabinets one by one before he found the one with coffee cups and pulled one out for himself. Even took his damn sweet time filling it up with black coffee before he turned back around and saw you staring at him. Unimpressed. Hip cocked out to the side with your hand on it. “Sorry, didn’t know I was some sex object you kept locked away in your room,”
“Not in front of her,”
“She was happy to see me,”
“She’s five! She doesn’t know what she is,” you scrubbed your hands over your face. “She’s my kid. You don’t get to make any decisions where it concerns her, okay? On the topic of us, I get to decide how and when she learns about it.”
“Come on, it’s–”
“Okay?”
He nodded, “okay.” 
That was all you let him have before you crossed in front of him and continued down the hall in the direction of your daughter’s room. It gave Javier time to look around the kitchen; at all the little things that made this your well lived in home. The chipping paint on the drawers. The cracked floor tile by the fridge. The way a few of the cabinet doors hung slanted and off kilter, creating uneven lines in between them. The sorts of things you would’ve added to a list for the man in your life had you had one. And it only made him think about if there had been another man between your ex and him filling that void. He hoped not, if only because that man did a piss poor job at fixing things around here.
And the attention he was giving that thought had him failing to fully acknowledge the knock on the door. Half conscious of it, he’d thought it was the muñequita tapping her fist along the wall as she came down the hallway. But then the knock happened again and it didn’t result in either of you joining him in the kitchen. Javi set his coffee cup down on the counter and thought about calling out to you, but then the knocking happened for a third time. This time accompanied with a man’s voice shouting a slur toward you and well… if you’d known anything about Javi’s time in Colombia, it was that he hardly ever played nicely and he wasn’t about to start now. 
He pulled open the front door, making sure his shoulders and hips were square to the man standing on the other side of it. A undoubtedly threatening stance. And it was received that way when the man he came to understand was your baby daddy eyed him up and down. Disgust and anger, and something else, rising in his face.
“Who the fuck are you?” He spat, trying to look over Javi’s shoulder and into the house.
“Let’s call me a new friend,”
He laughed incredulously. “Yeah, I’m sure. Slut doesn’t know how to keep her legs closed,”
Here, there was little thought. It was an instinct that long lived in Javier. Before Colombia, he hadn’t been able to save his mother from hurt and pain. Couldn’t save Lorraine from (in fact had been the direct cause of it), and so in Colombia he honed the skill he now carried with him every day. Practiced it until it was second nature… with Helena… Elisa…
Javi took one giant step forward through the threshold; one hand gripping the wrist of the other man, and Javi’s other hand at his shoulder. Turning his body and using it as the perfect amount of leverage to incapacitate almost any threat, he pressed forward until the asshole in front of him now had his cheek squished against the rough stucco wall of the house. Javi took his hand from his shoulder and readjusted until his forearm pressed against his upper back, rendering your baby daddy immobile. 
Javier took another step forward, his mouth at the ear of the man you’d once called a lover, and now called him something else. And though he fought, Javi held his ground. “If you say one bad thing about her, I will fuck you up. She’s gotta be nice to you ‘cause you share a daughter. But I don’t. I will end you,”
“Fuck you!”
Javi pressed harder on his back knowing once he let up, the other man would have the prickled imprints of the stucco on his skin. “And if the kid comes home with stories of things you said about her mom, I will fucking find you and I will fucking kill you.”
“Javi?”
Your voice called out from within the house and Javi took one giant step back, creating space between him and the man you were about to hand your child off to. The muñequita came to the door, a backpack nearly the size of her on her back, and reached out idly toward her dad. He clutched her hand, all but dragging her off the porch with a mention that he’d drop her back off tonight. But he was gone in seconds and yet you and Javi still stood on the porch – him watching the car peel out of the driveway, and you watching him. Scoping him out for what might’ve gone down.
“What happened?”
“Nothin’,” he shook his head and carried on back into the house.
“Peña?” You followed him back into the kitchen. He so coolly went back to the counter to retrieve his coffee, but you knew something was up. Your ex had never looked so riled… or flaunting skin that matched the stucco siding of your home.
“We had a chat, man to man. I think he’ll be on better behavior moving forward.”
77 notes · View notes
iersei · 7 months
Text
Tumblr media
the yellow chrysanthemums for neglected love (i wish i knew how much i loved you before i lost you.)
the purple hyacinths for sorrow, forgiveness, and rebirth (i'm sorry. i'm so sorry. please come back to me.)
the moss men for all that they have greedily stolen away (what are they going to do to you...?)
a fountain filled with green. a centerpiece for a bouquet of funeral flowers. a garden of all that we have lost underneath The Night sky.
(i'm going to save you.)
679 notes · View notes
peachesofteal · 7 months
Text
Crane your Neck
"And I placed my palm upon your collarbone, and I wished to fall asleep deep in your marrow, as gently as a mouse curled up in a ball, as gently as a mouse until tomorrow" - Lady Lamb
Tumblr media
Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick/female reader 2.1k words Warnings-tags: 18+ Minors DNI. Violence, blood, gore. Injury. Medical inaccuracies. Hurt/comfort. For @glitterypirateduck's Gazfest One shot/safe house + "I'll take care of you"/"Just like that"
The fire rages. 
It burns across the field, flames licking into the sky, smoke blotting out the sun until he’s not sure whether it’s night or day. Until it’s all he can see, all he can feel, the burn of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, seeping through his skin to his bones, burning into the whites of his eyes until he has no choice but to blink them closed, over and over. 
He ducks in between the row of houses, seeking shelter from the ash that falls from the sky. It’s not much, but enough, and he sticks close to the crumbling brick wall, debris and bodies and chunks of homes cluttering his route. 
He holds his weapon steady in front of his body. They come in waves, and he extinguishes each one, step by step, eliminating every single body between him and the last house on the left. 
Your last known location. 
One gets the drop on him, from behind, to his left. The man is fast, but not fast enough, nor skilled enough, to take him in close combat. A blade twists, there’s a flash of metal, of silver, before a prick of pain against his ribs, and then he’s burying his own knife into the man’s neck, seeking the soft spot beneath his jaw and ear. 
His blood spurts like a fountain. Kyle presses on. 
His mind is so focused, so dialed in, that the pain in his side is barely a hum. It sings with the throbbing of his knee, the song of the torn ligament in his ankle. They all come together to fade into the darkness, not even a thought. 
His brain will carry his body until he cannot walk. Cannot fight. Cannot breathe. It is his most powerful weapon. His sharpest tool. 
His radio is gone. The last crackle carrying just the hint of Price’s voice through to him before it chirped a final transmission and went dark. 
“- safe house.” 
He’ll make it. 
But not without you. 
"What is it?"
"What's that?"
"You're... staring at me." you motion with the rag you've got in your hand, and he can't fight the smile that pulls at his lips.
"'m not." He lies. He is, and has been, for the last hour. Staring at you, sitting in the bed of the truck, polishing some arbitrary piece of equipment while he sits and counts small pieces of parts. The sun has started to sink below the horizon, and it bathes you in a rainbow of orange and pink and red, dancing across your skin like a kaleidoscope, ever changing, but never less stunning. He's staring, because he's memorizing it, like a photograph he'll never get to take, something to hold close, to hold on to, to see again and again when he closes his eyes. When he's away from you, or across the room. When he's on a different continent, or buried in a shallow grave.
He finds you exactly where you said you’d be. Laid up in the kitchen of the last house on the left, your favorite LMG clutched in one hand, the other pressed to the wound just below your navel. There’s another body with you, an enemy’s, a man’s, facedown near the table. 
Your blood fans out beneath you, staining the worn linoleum of the room, a room that once probably, held happiness and sorrow. Family gatherings or quiet meals, tears or moments of joy. Now, all it holds is you and the dead man beside you. One in the grave, and the other, clinging to life that spills from a wound like water.
“D-damn, Gaz. Y’come all this way for me?” You cough, lips splitting wide to showcase a bloody set of teeth. You’re playing with him, as you’re prone to do. Fucking around, like you usually are with him, with Soap. It’s something he looks forward to, most days. The sound of your laughter, the way your voice changes when you’re telling a joke or, even better, the way you giggle when you’re laughing about something he’s said. 
“You’re a fucking riot, Garrick.” You’d wipe your eyes, pretty grin stretching across your face while you shook your head. It made him swell with pride, whenever it happened. Whenever he got you to smile like that. 
Now, your smile does nothing to hide the glimmer of fear in your eyes. The panic that ebbs and flows in the room with you, riding the tide every second you draw breath.
You’re in bad shape. 
“Couldn’t leave without my favorite sparring partner.” He kneels, wrapping strong fingers around your wrist. Your own dig into your jacket, trying to hold onto the wound, trying to keep him from lifting your palm. 
“Don’t.” You warn and he shakes his head.   “I’ve got it. Let me see.” His words are insistent, but patient. He won’t force you, but he’s got more strength, more energy than you. You both know it. 
“It’s bad, Kyle.”
“Can’t be too bad, you’re still giving me shit, yeah?” He smiles, and you heave a sigh. 
The exchange is quick. He’s got your hand free in one moment, enough time for blood to slick across your clothes faster than he likes, and then his hand covering it in the next. 
You weren’t wrong. It is bad. Bad enough that one look at it is enough to tell him it needs to be cauterized, and he curses himself for not getting here sooner. 
“What was it?” You grit your teeth. 
“Knife.” You jerk your foot towards the body a meter away, and he tries not think about the struggle that happened. 
“Got one of those too.” He motions to his ribs, and your face screws up into something stricken, something worried. 
“You should have gone right to the safe house.” You hiss, and he ignores it, switching his hand with yours again to source something from the kitchen. 
“Hold pressure.” He instructs, and your head wobbles when you see the glint of the knife in his hand.  “It’s too late for that-“ you mumble, but he shakes his head in denial. 
“Wait here.” 
“Obviously.” A half smile cracks across your face, and he returns it easily before slinking off into the back of the kitchen to find a burner. 
It’s the screaming, that he cannot bear. The act itself is not without struggle, but the sound of your voice breaking, again and again, would be too much for anyone to stand. The smell of your flesh searing is rife against his nose, worse than the smell of the ash and blood that permeates the air outside the door. The sounds of your screams are worse than the struggle of your body beneath his strength, the push and pull of your chest against the arm that pins you down, tries to hold you still. 
“I know, I know.” He murmurs, trying to comfort you, the blade still pressed to your skin as it finishes. “Breathe.” 
The raw scrape of your voice pains him, flickering down into his heart, past everything he’s built to keep you out, everything he’s built to keep his brain focused, to keep himself on point. 
“Almost done, love. Almost there.” He promises, letting the forearm that presses against your chest relax slightly as the knife begins to cool, pulling it away to reveal the burn that will undoubtedly scar and most likely get infected unless he gets you to the safehouse. 
The screaming has already burrowed itself beneath his skin, scarring him the same as you. Something he’ll carry always, the memory of your agony. The sound of your pain. 
He lets you rest, for a few minutes. Sits there in the house against the wall with you, your thigh pressed to his, your lashes sticky with tears. He watches your chest rise and fall, rise and fall, your deft fingers still woven with his. You haven’t let go, even when he repositioned you to rest more comfortably, even when he went to pull away. You kept your grip tight, your eyes trained on the ceiling. 
It feels like a good sign. Good enough of a sign that he’s ready to move the two of you.
“Got a radio?” 
“Negative.”
“Alright, then. Ready?” He shifts onto his feet, knees flexing as he hoists one of your arms around his shoulder. 
“You can’t be serious… I wa-was been bleeding for too long. It’s too far.” He’s a logical man. An intelligent one. He’s very good, too good at calculating the risks, and evaluating opportunities for success. He excels at his work. He strives to ensure his mind is sharp, that his tactical ability, his awareness, is just as on point as it ever was. 
You make this a challenge. More than he cares to admit to himself, to his captain, to his team. 
“Well, I didn’t come all this way for nothing.” He volleys and you scowl. “Let’s go.” It’s firm, and he’s adamant. He cannot be soft now, even though it’s what he craves. What he dreams about at night, in the room across the hall or the tent across the path from you. He dreams of folding your body into his, of holding you tightly against him, stroking your skin and pressing his lips against yours, plucking delicate sounds from your mouth with fervor. 
He wishes, so badly, to be soft but he cannot. Not if he wants to save you. 
And he will. He’ll get you there, to the safe house. There is no other option.
Your legs kick out from underneath you while you try to push upwards, and he uses your grip to leverage you against him, leaving you standing but pressed to his hip, his hand still cradling your stomach. 
You’re close enough to him now that he can feel your ribs expanding and contracting next to him, their slow and steady draw enough to settle the dark tendrils of fear that have sprouted in the back of his mind, quieting the thump of panic in his heart.  “One step at a time.” He encourages, and you glare. 
“Easy for you to say.” You protest, but you do it anyway, syncing your movements with his.
“Just like that.” You nod shakily, and he shoves down the urge to press his lips to the side of your head, to breathe you in. “That’s good.” 
“It’s too far.” You tell him again, but he rebukes it. 
“It’s not. Hardly a click.” The lie doesn’t go unnoticed, but neither of you speak on it. 
You collapse after a click and a half. Your weight sinks into his, head lolling back until he’s lowering you to the ground, squeezing your shoulders and shaking your body to jog you into consciousness. 
“Wake up, love. Come on.” He barks it, unable to be calm, desperate to get you to focus on him. 
Explosions boom from the north. Red streaks across the sky. 
They’re moving closer. The risk continues to rise. 
“Come on, come on!” You blink at him, a little out of focus but conscious, and he doesn’t bother to fight himself anymore, he strokes a hand across your cheek, rubs your temple with a thumb and the sweeps his palm over your forehead. “There you are.”
“Kyle.” Your color is off now, changing rapidly, and even in the glow of the fire, he can see how your eyes struggle to track him. 
You’ve lost too much blood. Even with the cauterization, there’s no reversing what happened before he found you. 
“Think you’ve got ‘nother click in ya?” 
“Kyle.” It’s a no, it’s a request, a protest. You want him to leave. You want him to run. “You have to-“ 
“Don’t.” He spits. “Don’ even bother, you hear me?” 
“I can’t walk.” You insist and he shrugs. 
“I’ll carry you.” Your mouth forms an o, and then closes, before you shake against him. Your fingers tighten in his tac vest, and he pulls your knees and torso towards his body, curving your spine to be carried against his chest. “I’ve got you, alright? We’re almost there.” 
When he breaches the door, it’s with a kick. Your breathing is shallow, and you stay curled beneath him, your head tucked under his chin, arm limp. 
Soap jumps to his feet with a shout, and then he’s clearing a table, helping Gaz lay you flat. 
They’re not medics, none of them have enough field medical training to do more than what’s already been done, but at least they can radio an evac and give you a sedative, some antibiotics. 
Your brow creases in pain. He strokes your cheek. 
“We made it.” He murmurs, and you nod weakly into his hand. 
Soap approaches from the other side with a needle, drawing up a vial while you stare up at Gaz. 
“Medevac?” you croak, and he squeezes your hand. 
“Yes, love. We’ll get you back, get you into medical. And- I’ll… I’ll take care of you.” You smile, teeth still splattered with blood. Smeared with it. “I’ll be with you, the whole way.” 
“Promise?” you slur out. Soap stabs your wound with the needle, but you don’t flinch, don’t even react. 
You just keep your eyes on him, until your lashes are fluttering shut with the weight of the sedative. 
He smooths his hand over your head, before leaning forward to press his lips to your forehead with a whisper. 
“I promise.”
478 notes · View notes
cosmicwhoreo · 7 months
Text
...SO, I made another Kirby Oc...
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Lore under the cut!
Art and scripture older than most existing galaxies today can be found all over The Dream Fountain. Depicting a graceful, godlike entity that archaeologists had dubbed "Lady Dream". While a majority of the text is still left untranslated, they've managed to piece together a small snippet of a story from the many, aged murals dotted around the fountain's surrounding structures.
They could only recover the apparent story about halfway through, though. As a good portion of the glass paintings had been either desecrated or completely destroyed. Whether it was through conscious and malicious actions taken by an aggressive third party, or just time taking it's toll on the sacred ground, they have no idea…
"Lady Dream is, from what we can gather; the Goddess of the Night and the Founder of Dreams and Nightmares. Whose endless tears, brought on by an unknown tragedy lost to time, began to pool into a starry puddle beneath her hunched form as she wept. And soon enough that puddle became a lake...
And eventually, She soon crumpled down onto the lake's floor and finally closed her teary eyes. Ane as her grief and power slowly melded into one, she began to dream the first and longest dream. And through her powers, she connected with the universe's many creatures and extended her sleepy delusions of paradise and strange stories to them, created by her now endless sleep. Granting them all the gift of a moment's solace with her from their own troubling existences. However, the unconscious mind has a way of pulling you back to your pain. A terrible pain. And it is said that she once had held a dream so fearsome, it birthed a dark horror from the once peaceful fountain of dreams. Tearing through the sky like a black comet of fear and sorrow. Unleashing onto the universe a new kind of terror.
The first ever NIGHTMARE."
662 notes · View notes
apoemaday · 4 months
Text
Alone
by Edgar Allan Poe
From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were; I have not seen As others saw; I could not bring My passions from a common spring. From the same source I have not taken My sorrow; I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone; And all I loved, I loved alone. Then – in my childhood, in the dawn Of a most stormy life – was drawn From every depth of good and ill The mystery which binds me still: From the torrent, or the fountain, From the red cliff of the mountain, From the sun that round me rolled In its autumn tint of gold, From the lightning in the sky As it passed me flying by, From the thunder and the storm, And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view.
280 notes · View notes