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This post is everything. (via @sukunasfootrest)

*Mom walks into room*

Mom: Where’s my grandson?

Me: He’s on the dresser.

Mom: *picks up Grogu and proceeds to go show our GUESTS her other grandson, even taps his head so he’ll coo*

ghosts

—CHAPTER FOUR: sour guilty sickness

pairing: Javier Peña x f! reader

previous part | next part | masterlist

a/n: well it took a while but here she is ! things are turning a bit of a brighter corner here but don’t worry, the angst will be back soon enough !! thanks for waiting yall, I’m so glad to finally get this out !! hope you enjoy !!

The version of him that you photographed was the man he wished he could be.

Unburdened. Happy. In love.

That man, that version of him, didn’t exist. Not really. Not for any longer than it took you to take the photo in the first place.

Reality was darker. Blurrier. Emptier.

The man in the photos was never suffocated in darkness or stalked in shadows, yet he spent his days drowning in the deepest depths of humanity’s darkest days. The water was at his head, every breath was a fight, and there never seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Another day, another massacre. Another mission, another mistake, another man who didn’t get to go home, another family left with a hole that no rousing speech, commendation, or memorial could ever fill.

The man in the photos was never out of focus, yet Javier couldn’t remember a time when things had been clear, when the line between good and bad wasn’t an indiscernible mess he had no chance in hell of ever making sense of. There was blood everywhere he looked, it stained his hands and everything he touched, he could scrub for hours and he still felt wrong holding you close. The horrors he witnessed, the horrors he executed, all of it lined the uneven, narrow passageway that separated the good from the bad. It was grey, blurry and messy. Not sharp edges, no clean cuts.

And the man in the photo was never alone. That just wasn’t fair, because all Javier ever felt was alone.

The photos always captured him as a man of the world around him: gently examining tomatoes on your instruction as the two of you moved through the market overflowing with life, laughing shoulder to shoulder with Murphy in the packed booth of a bar with his fingers cradling the neck of his beer, holding your hand or touching you someway even if you were out of frame. The photos painted him as a man who was never alone, but he was, he was so painfully alone. In the darkness surrounding him, in the blurred alley that existed between the lines, even in bed as you slept beside him, he was alone, trapped in the horrors that haunted his lonely mind.

There were moments when he could forget, moments where the hot press of your mouth along the length of his neck lit a fire of warmth in his chest and kept him on fire for hours while his hands clung to your skin, moments where the soft hold of your hand found his, your linked grips swinging between the two of you as you walked through the humming streets as the golden glow of the setting sun settled over the two of you, moments where the two of you felt like the only two people in the world and he could never imagine ever being without you. There were moments, plenty of them, but it was never enough.

He felt empty in a way your photos could never capture, alone in a way he never shared with you. In a way he never shared with anyone.

The man you photographed was the man he wanted to be. The man you photographed was the man you deserved.

Waking up to that man staring back at him was plainly mocking and exactly what he deserved.

The photo had slipped from the mess of photographs stacked in your lap and found itself a place to rest against the flat of the bed between where you sat up, already awake, and where his head rested on the edge of his pillow as the morning finally woke him. It was a photo of him, unburdened, happy, and in love.

As aged as it felt, he knew it had only been a few months ago. A Sunday. A simple Sunday.

He had lost you in the street, or at least, he thought he had. Not intentionally, but in the excitement of the crowds pouring out of every church that lined the streets of the neighborhood, it was relatively easy to do. His attention was pulled one way and yours the other. A small cart of flowers had been his hook, catching him out of the crowd and reeling him over. Buckets and buckets of beautiful flowers bunched together in bountiful bouquets, the aroma itself could have kept him there for hours.

“For someone special?” The older woman sitting beside the cart asked, her accent thick, as soon as she spotted his interest and he had no chance in hell of hiding his smitten smirk, even as he replied with a short nod of his head. “A beautiful girl?”

“The most beautiful.” He conceded.

She gestured towards a particularly large bundle but he shook his head, pointing to a different collection, smaller but no less beautiful.

“Ah… simple, good choice.”

He handed over a few folded bills and she nodded graciously, wishing him luck as he pulled the bouquet from the cart.

For just a second, maybe even less than that, he lingered. He brought the flowers to his nose and took in a deep breath of beauty, the same smitten smile still sitting on his lips as he gave one last nod to the woman and moved back into the crowd. He hadn’t seen you through the crowd, just a few yards away, capturing the moment. You had caught back up with him seconds later, intertwining the fingers of one hand with his and accepting the flowers with the other, a surging smile stuck on your face as the two of you continued your walk.

It was a good picture of him. Not of Javier, but of the man he wanted to be. Unburdened. Happy. In love.

If only he could be. If only it were that simple.

You turned as you heard him rustling in the sheets beside you, a soft smile sitting on your lips as you watched him pick up the picture and admire it for a minute. “Good morning.”

“‘Morning baby…” He hummed back, returning the photo to your lap.

There were at least twenty photos there, a couple of him, a few of Connie and Steve, both separate and together, and a couple duplicates of photos you had taken for work, streets lined with people, small cultural centers and jaw-dropping landscapes of the gorgeous Colombian nature. This wasn’t exactly a regular routine of yours, but every month or so, you’d assemble a collection of your favorites and find a place for them among the pages of your worn leather journal. Your private worn leather journal.

That wasn’t to say he never saw inside it, but it was yours to let him see. If you weren’t there to open it, it was never opened, no matter how overwhelming the affliction of curiosity could be sometimes when you left it out on the counter, he knew better.

There were six or seven of them in total, but the oldest ones typically stayed tucked away. This was the one you had kept for as long as he had known you though, your affectionately termed Colombia edition. In between the photos and their detailed descriptions scrawled beneath in your unique script, you filled the journal with general descriptions of your life, of the culture around you, and everything you’re feeling. Part of him has always wondered what you had written about him, a separate part of him, the part that always won out, never wanted to know.

“You slept in…” your words trailed off once your stare moved back to the selection of slices of your life in your lap. “You haven’t done that in a while…”

“Yeah.” He huffed, rolling onto his back as he rubbed the last of the sleep from his eyes. Lulling to the side, his head turned and his eyes stayed on you, admiring every inch of your profile as you worked.

Your smile stayed soft. Gentle. Miraculous. “That’s good…”

You deserved better than him. You deserved the man in the photos and he wasn’t that.

He needed to talk to you, to tell you why life had been hell for the two of you for the past few months, to tell you why he was keeping you up at night tossing and turning, terrified of his own mind. There were things he didn’t know how to talk about, things he didn’t know how to tell you, but that just wasn’t fair. He loved you and that meant something. Day after day, you begged him to talk to you, and he owed you that. He owed you more than the fear of losing you.

He just wasn’t ready yet.

Rolling back over, he positioned his head by your lap, laying a gentle kiss to the skin of your thigh. “How long have you been up?”

“Just about an hour or two,” you bit the end of your pen cap off to write something on the back of a photo of Connie in her scrubs getting back from work, and continued on, your words garbled by the cap between your teeth. “Whenever the sun came up.”

By this time on any other day, you’d already be out, either exploring every corner of the city or out as far as the soldiers would let you get into the surrounding jungle on your own. It had been a long time since he woke up beside you. He pressed another lazy kiss to your thigh. He missed you.

Another kiss. And another kiss.

“Javi…”

Another kiss. He’d take as many as he could get before things came to a painfully inevitable head.

He wasn’t naive, he knew you had seen bad things before. Colombia was far from your first rodeo when it came to nations in disarray, be it war, genocide, drug trade or dictatorships, he knew that. You weren’t a photographer, you were a photojournalist. He knew that.

There were things you left out when you told your exciting stories at the bar, parts of your cultural escapades in South East Asia or the Middle East that didn’t come with chuckles and smiles. He saw the way your stare absconded when Steve pressed too hard in a direction you weren’t quite willing to go and the chuckle you offered as cover as you reached for your drink and changed the subject skillfully. He listened to the things you told him beneath the blanket of darkness in his bedroom, before it became your shared bedroom, hushed whispers covering for your voice cracks as the details caught you. And he had read more of your journals than anyone else, he read passages you didn’t typically share and he saw some of the photos folded between the pages while others were showcased openly.

One was just a little girl. The folded half of the photo had caught his undeniable curiosity when a phone call interrupted you while showing him some of your older work. He hadn’t asked, he had just opened it. It was a little girl. Big smile, beautiful brown eyes. Just a little girl. There were hundreds of photos filling your journals, many of them children, but this one was folded. Hidden.

And when you returned to the table, you folded the picture shut and he knew better than to ask.

Just like he knew better than to ask when he first noticed you shying away from his gun. He never thought twice about leaving it out openly before you first showed your hesitancy and he never thought twice about putting it in a drawer after you had. He knew it wasn’t a typical civilian gun-shyness, he knew there was a reason for it.

He knew you had seen bad things before, but this wasn’t just that. He hadn’t just seen bad things in his line of work, he had done bad things. Too many bad things.

Another kiss.

Eventually, you stopped writing and recapped your pen. “Javi…”

“I know, baby.” He laid yet another kiss along your skin, actively avoiding your stare as he felt you shift to look down at him. “I know.”

“You’re going to have to talk to me…”

A rough sigh escaped his tight chest as he pressed his forehead into the curve where your thigh met your hip. Muffled, his words vibrated against the fabric of your loose-hanging tee, baggy around your hips. “I know, baby.”

He did know. He really did. But that didn’t make it any easier.

As his eyes clenched shut, buried in the warmth of your side, he could feel you shuffling around, stacking up the photos and abandoning your work by the foot of the bed. He thought it was just so you could turn all your focus to him, but you kept moving, adjusting until you laid back against a carefully constructed mountain of pillows. He readjusted almost automatically, resting his head in your lap as your fingers wove themselves into his hair.

“I miss you, Javi…” your hand brushed the flattened mess of hair back out of his eyes, carding through all of it strand by strand. “You’ve been here this whole time but I… I miss you.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to leave Javi, that’s the last thing in the world that I want to do, but you’ve gotta work with me here. This is new for me too, alright, staying in one place is new for me…” he pressed a kiss to the indent your skin had made on itself while you were sat up for so long, urging you on as your voice grew weaker. “I want to stay here. With you.”

He could hear every word you weren’t saying just as clearly as the ones you were.

Don’t give me a reason to leave, you said. This is your last chance.

He owed you more than the fear of losing you. He owed you the truth.

“Things are bad here, baby. They’ve been bad for a while, I know, but they’re getting worse.” Still, he couldn’t find the words he needed to. Vague wasn’t what you deserved. You deserved answers. “I’m doing a lot of bad things. Bad things that I can’t… I can’t bring home to you.”

“But you do.”

He sucked in a sharp breath, dipping his stare from yours and instead settling his eyes on the stitched hem of your shirt where it rucked up across your stomach. “I don’t want to,” he corrected himself and you seemed to accept that for now as his breath released in a ragged cascade across your lap. “There are parts of me that I don’t want you to see.”

“You mean parts of your job.”

No. He didn’t.

He had grown too comfortable pulling a trigger to separate himself from his work anymore, the guilt never went away but he stopped hesitating. If a man pointed a gun at him with the intent to kill him, then he did the same. It didn’t matter that he was doing things for the right reason anymore, at some point, a line needed to be drawn. Doing bad things for good reasons sounded just in theory, but he was doing more and more bad and coming out with less and less good.

Carrillo. Los Pepes. How much was too much? When was he going to be able to look at himself in the mirror again?

“Javi…”

“I know that the guys I’m fighting are much worse than me, but the lines keep getting blurrier, and what I’m willing to do to stop them… at some point…” He lost his breath, and no amount of gentle strokes through his hair could get him to keep going.

“Baby…” you cooed, dragging your nails along his scalp as his eyes fell shut. “I’ve known my fair share of bad men, you aren’t one of them.”

With his eyes shut, his mind had free reign. Over and over again he watched Carrillo line the boys up in the alley, over and over again he watched the kids talk back to him. They didn’t think he would do anything. They were just kids. Over and over again he watched him level the gun to the kid’s head and pull the trigger. Over and over again.

Extracting your hand from his hair, your warm palm moved down to his cheek. “Bad men don’t think like that, Javi.”

His head shook but your touch remained constant.

“Javi, baby, what is it? What do you keep seeing?”

Your touch was too soft, your gentle hold bordering on suffocating. He couldn’t breathe. Over and over again, the trigger pulled, the gunshot echoed, and the kid dropped.

He left a numb, barely there kiss to the hem of your shorts where they laid on your thigh, and pulled himself up. It was a weak promise he made to you, to cut back on his smoking, you knew that when he made it, yet he still felt guilty rolling over and reaching for the half-empty pack he pulled from his pockets last night and left on the nightstand. He could feel your eyes lingering on the tension held taut between his shoulders, he could feel the concern smothering your stare, he could feel the weight of it chilling his spine.

“Javi…” he could hear you sitting up behind him but he didn’t stop, he threw his legs over his side of the bed and lit his cigarette with an effortless flick of the lighter. Your hand found his shoulder and he flinched. “Javi, I—”

“He was just a kid.”

He could feel the comforting confidence leave you, your grip losing all its strength where it lingered on his shoulder. You didn’t pull back, but you might as well have, your touch was numb. He inhaled a deep breath of smoke, but the warmth was nothing compared to the chill emanating from you the second the word ‘kid’ left his lips.

“Javi, what happened?” There was an edge to your tone, a careful cut.

“Carrillo he… he told me that he wanted to send a message. I didn’t ask what that meant… I trusted him so I didn’t ask…” He coughed out, wiping over his face with his hand as he folded even further in on himself. Again and again, he watched the kid drop. Again and again, the echo of the shot rang through the alley and became all he could hear. “Escobar, he uses kids as spotters, to keep an eye on the military. Just boys, maybe as old as fourteen, and young as seven, maybe eight. And Carrillo, he wanted to round them up, he wanted to send a message.”

This was as quiet as the room had ever been.

He could hear each of your stilted breaths, every rustle against the sheets as you shifted carefully behind him, every beat of your heart.

He sucked in another breath of smoke. “He lined them up in this alley, he was talking to them, he was trying to scare them but… but one of the kids wouldn't shut up. He didn’t think… I didn’t think…”

Your grip found itself again as you started pulling the rough puzzle pieces he choked out for you together.

“I just stood there watching when he pulled the trigger. Everytime I close my eyes, I see it again and I can’t…”

“Javi, baby—” Tighter and tighter, your grip grew as you held his shoulder, fingers digging in as he slipped further and further away. Each flash of memories in his mind took him deeper and deeper down, until the darkness of his guilt began to swallow him whole.

“I just stood there, I let it happen. I knew something was different with him, I knew and I just let him do it—”

Your other hand ran up his back, your body heat pressing closer in behind him as the chills settled in his spine grew constant, a cold wind swirling in his chest. “Javi—”

A violent breath of smoke fell from his lips as he scoffed, disgust bubbling up from deep within his gut. “I didn’t even try to stop him.”

“Could you have?”

The brutalized scene playing behind his mind froze. “What?”

“I only met him a few times but he wasn’t a man to compromise. If you had tried, do you honestly think you could have stopped him?” Your voice was closer now, right over his shoulder as you tentatively wrapped yourself around him from behind. Every inch of your touch was timid and hesitant, like you thought one wrong move would shatter him into a thousand pieces.

Maybe you were right.

He smashed the butt of his cigarette into the ashtray on the nightstand as his tone grew deeper, rough with a tone he never took with you. “I was standing right there.”

“You just said you didn’t know what he was planning to do, Javi—”

“I should have known.”

“Javi—”

“I watched his men march them into the alley, I stood there when they lined them up on their knees,” he cursed, rubbing rough over his face, incapable of looking back at you. “I should have stepped in before it ever got that far.”

Your lips pressed weakly to the back of his neck. “Okay.”

He shook his head and stubbornly fought, “I should have—”

“I’m not placating you, Javi, you’re right.” You sighed, leaning forward to rest your head between his shoulders. “It’s okay.”

“Things are bad here, baby… I do bad things and I don’t want to…” curse you with it.

One of your hands scaled up the treacherous landscape of his back, winding your fingers into the short bits of his hair hanging down his neck. “Hiding things from me isn’t going to keep me here. I don’t need you to protect me.”

Again, his head shook, with the last of the strength he could muster. “That doesn’t stop me from wanting to.”

No, you pressed a soft kiss between his shoulders again, you knew that.

Wrapping your hand from the back of his neck around to his cheek, pushing his face towards his shoulder where yours met him. “You’re not a bad man, Javi, it’s just a bad situation.”

His voice broke, weaker than you had ever heard him as his hand reached up to pull yours from his face. “Then why does it feel like this…”

“Because it does,” you sighed. “Because when bad things are happening and you can’t do enough, that kind of sour, guilty sickness is all you can feel.”

There was a knowing bite to your words, a telling drop of your stare from his.

“That and anger.” your chuckle broke through your solemn resolve. “I don’t know, I spend a lot of time as a bystander, I can’t speak to what you do. But I know about seeing a lot of bad and not being able to do enough good to make a difference, I know a lot about that anger.”

The years he had under his belt in Colombia were nothing compared to the years you had on him. Before moving here, before picking up this fight against the narcos as his own, he had been a low-level agent in the States. That wasn’t to say he didn’t see his fair share of violence, but it wasn’t this. It wasn’t a day to day struggle for humanity. The same couldn’t have been said for you. He asked once, how long you had been traveling for, and you had answered mainly with the shrug of your shoulders.

When he pressed on for an actual answer, you shrugged again. “I don’t know, I was in school for journalism and bored out of my mind. A friend suggested a trip to Mexico and I didn’t ever really go back to the States after that.”

Whatever he was feeling, god, it must have been nothing compared to the years of compounded anger settled in your bones. And still, your touch remained the softest thing and your work the most beautiful. You could take the horrible city around you and find a way to highlight the glorious humanity afflicted by the shadows of reality. You could take the ghost of a man he was and capture the unburdened levity of his smile, the happy crinkle of his eye, and the loving center his job forced him to bury deep.

He loved you more than life itself, but more than that, he cherished you. Because for you, he wanted to be better. For you, he wanted to be the man you photographed.

At the very least, he owed you that.

The two of you stayed like that for a while, not knowing how to move from there, but when you finally got up and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead, he at least knew Brazil was off the table.

For one day, one quiet morning, it was enough.

-

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sanctuary

pairing: Din Djarin x Reader

words: just a lil shy of 2k

warnings: lots of night time cuddles, bedtime stories + an absolute agent of chaos, maybe a lil bit of angst if you squint, perhaps mildly canon divergent lol 

a/n: in honor of another episode here’s my first time writing for mando in like two centuries :)))

The hull hums with the pressurized vacuum of space and the mechanical whirring of the ship on autopilot. 

Keep reading

This is why I don’t tell 99% people im bisexual

If you see this on your dashboard, reblog this, NO MATTER WHAT and all your dreams and wishes will come true.

Y'all

People are actually fucking dying in Palestine and all over the world because of international negligence and U.S. aggression.

And you're having a meltdown over a celebrity you don't know? What the fuck is wrong with you?

You know what you should be angry about, my fellow U.S. Americans? The fact that your fucking tax dollars go to "foreign aid" to help Israel bomb the fuck out of Palestinian children and the fact that fucking Biden is not doing a goddamn fucking thing.

Why don't you give your local representatives a call and scream at them? God knows they fucking deserve it.

Forever & Always// F.Morales

frankie x female reader (slightly no use of y/n or she/her pronouns just the word sister)

warnings: angst, language, tension, alcohol mention, mention of claustrophobia and slight description of anxiety, and language

summary: you moved away from your family and boyfriend at eighteen. when you come back home for your parents 50th anniversary you weren't expecting a rekindling moment with a certain pilot.

authors note: THE ENDING IS EVERYTHING AND IM SO PROUD OF THIS FIC! PLEASE LMK WHAT YALL THINK XOXO

masterlist

They say you’ll never forget your first. First crush, kiss, date, love and heartbreak. However for you, you could never seem to get rid of him. But you weren’t complaining. Francisco Morales was more than your first for everything, he was someone who held more than one could handle- he was your rock. Well that was until the day that “you” ruined everything.

Your parents were known as the sweethearts of your hometown. Marrying right after graduation, they settled in the same town and brought up you and your sister Em. Your parents were involved in everything, your mom being a teacher and your dad being a sheriff. It was hard to blend in to say the least. But there was an ongoing loop. Everyone graduated and stayed home. Your older sister, Em, even became a part of that treacherous loop. And you hated that loop. You always dreamed of big cities, fashion, traveling the world, but mostly just getting out of town. And you had promised yourself that nothing would hold you back from pursuing that. Sadly Frankie thought he could have kept you a little bit longer. But things change- actually a lot has changed since you’ve been back home for more than a weekend stay. Now you were traveling back home for your parent’s 50th anniversary extravaganza. And nothing could help prepare you for the next few days.

Your plane had landed around one in the afternoon. Grabbing your luggage you made your way over to the area where Em said she would pick you up. Looking around you didn;t see her red car. Dialing her number you were ready to direct her to your terminal.

“Hello?” Em said on the other line. She sounded groggy and as if she wasn't in the car.

“Terminal 47 remember.” You said angrily, Knowing she forgot.

“Shit.” She said, then another voice was heard.

“Babe what time is it?” You gasped at the sound of Pope's voice.

“Hold on, you first forgot your little sister's arrival at the airport, and you have Pope in your bed Em! When did he come back? What happened to independency?” You said rather loudly into the mic.

“Shut up. You're too damn loud.”

“It’s literally tourist season, getting a cab into town will cost me tripple Em.”

“Well don’t call the Millers, they went fishing this morning. You could call-” She said even more groggily. But you hung up the phone before she could finish her sentence.

You couldn’t take your sister right now. You love her most times but she would've killed you if you did this to her. You were gonna call the Millers but if they were busy there was only one person you could call. Hearing the phone ring you were ready to hang up. But then he answered.

“Hey, what's up.”

“Quick question: when did my sister get back with Pope?” You said rather too fast.

A small laugh left him, “That’s a long story.”

“Well I have another question for you.” You said getting nervous.

“Shoot.”

“Well Em, forgot that I was flying in today to surprise my parents and well I’m kind of stranded at the airport. Is there any way you can send someone-” Suddenly you were cut off.

“What terminal are you at?”

“Terminal 47.” You said softly while releasing the breath you were holding.

“It’ll be 20 minutes.” He said.

“Thank you Frankie.” You heard a small yeah and hung up the phone. And thinking to yourself. Yay reunion time.

✰✰✰

18 minutes later, that infamous truck he insists on always keeping, though it's as old as you, rolled up to the curb in front of you. He got out of the truck and damn does he look like the same senior in high school you were swooning over. I mean he’s aged, but not badly. He’s the same Francisco.

“I owe you one.” You said as he got closer.

“No worries, I feel bad about Em and Pope doing you like that.” He said giving you a side hug and grabbing your suitcase. He quickly opened your door, still never letting you touch the door handles in his truck. You slid in and felt a wave of nerves wash over you. The last time you were alone with Frankie was years ago when you guys broke up as he dropped you off at the airport. But you remembered time has passed and everything should be decent now. Well that’s what you hope for. Frankie had finally made it into the truck. He took a breath and looked at you.

“Hey.” He said softly.

“Hi.” You said matching his level,

“So um how long are you staying?” He asked cutting to the chase.

“That's a long story. I’m not sure to be honest.” You said, Frankie nodded and began driving. Fuck the tension just grew higher.

“So um Pope and Em what happened there?” You said wanting to clear the silence.

“Well after Benny’s championship fight, there were lots of beers and then all of a sudden it was like prom all over again with them. Running away for a week and then committing to another relationship. Except this time it seems permanent.” He said constantly looking over to see you in the passenger seat like it was prom night again.

“Dear god, no wonder she didn’t update me on the fight at all. She was with him and didn't want me to find out.” You said chuckling.

Em and Pope were like your parents except they had more problems than a math textbook. They had gotten together in high school and that’s how your friend group formed. You being the younger sister of Em always having to tag along with her fr town events and football games. None of the boys minded but it was the classic my sister's boyfriend's best friend is the one for me. You became Frankie’s date for every outing, and soon you put a label on you both. But when it was your turn to leave for college Frankie and you split. Heartbroken ever since that day. Because you had to stay loyal to him when he left but he couldn’t take the fact that you wanted to leave your small town for good.

“You could get ready at my place and we could go to your parents together. That's only if you're ok with it?” He said.

“Yeah that sounds great. Thank you again Frankie.”

✰✰✰

Frankie’s house was exactly how you imagined it. Pictures and memorabilia everywhere, the smell of fresh wood and sunflowers. He had a small vegetable garden on the side of his house, and he used to always dream of having a house with a pool, so it wasn’t a surprise that you saw a good size one in the backyard.

You walked in more and saw a bunch of pictures on a wall. Glazing over them you saw some with you, and most of them were of him in the army. You walked over to the couches where there were more pictures. In a frame there was a picture of you two on your graduation day. Frankie wore your cap as you kissed his cheek. You smiled at that memory. It was the day after he came back from bootcamp, with him surprising you, both of you worried he wasn't gonna make it.

Frankie had shown you his bathroom. Where you got ready. Leaving the bathroom you walked out to see Frankie waiting for you.

“Wow you look amazing.” He said in a breathy tone.

“Thank you.” You said as you feel your cheeks heat up.

“No seriously, you look great.” He said to reassure you. You walked up and offered your hand.

“Francisco Morales, will you be a gentleman and join me tonight?”

“When have I ever said no to you?” He asked as he took your hand.

“I can think of a few times.” You laughed as you both walked to his truck.

For  once in a long time you felt as if Frankie and you were good. Good as in being together again. But only fools dream like that. Right?

✰✰✰

At your parents' anniversary party everyone and anyone was there. Your parents and friends were surprised to say the least and you enjoyed every minute of it. Your group was sitting around the table enjoying drinks and memories, it felt like you never left. Frankie was sitting by your side, and every so often it looked as if he wanted to be closer to you so you took the initiative to slowly move closer. When his arm was behind you, you were finally content, and based on his smile so was he.

“Care to dance?” You asked Frankie.

“Do I have to remind you how horrible we are at dancing?” He said laughing through his response.

“You owe me one dance, remember?” You said smiling knowing Frankie can’t say no now.

Standing up he offered you his arm and you both made your way over to the dance floor.

Moving to the beat, you were both entangled in limbs, but a bright smile displayed on everyone as they watched you and Frankie become those kids who pined for each other for all those years.

“It’s sad.” Em said to the table.

“On what?” Benny asked cluelessly.

“Pendejo. He promised her that he would only dance with her one more time at their wedding. They were supposed to be the next couple to celebrate fifty years together in this town.” Santiago said, looking at his best friend and you.

Frankie and you were laughing and talking but as a slow song came on you both stayed on the dance floor. Unknowing of the conversation that was going on with your group.

“I missed you.” Frankie said.

“There's not even a way to describe the feeling of how much I missed you.” You said, placing your head on his chest. Frankies grip tightened around you, as if he was scared that he was going to lose you. Again.

“I’m sorry.” You said softly.

“No. No apologies. Just be with me. Right here in this moment. Not the past or the future.”

“Frankie?” You asked, to which he hummed to be his response.

“Promise me this won’t be our last dance?” Your voice cracked as you spoke.

“Promise me you won’t be gone as long as you have been.” He spoke softly, as almost he was about to break. You nodded, not being able to form words. A small kiss was placed on your head from him. This was the way you used to seal promises.

It wasn’t until speeches and cake till your night was ruined. Everyone gathered around where your parents were. Your parents holding a microphone and giving thanks.

“Since we were kids this town has done nothing but helped us. We found true love in this zip code and we raised our wonderful kids here. Our oldest is striving to become a wonderful teacher like her mom and our youngest has been working her heart out since she was handed a highschool diploma. We thank all of you for your support and well wishes towards us and our family.” Your dad spoke as everyone clapped to his thoughtfulness.

“Though we are here celebrating our wonderful fifty years together. We are beyond grateful to have both of our children here tonight with us.” Your Mom spoke and pointed towards you and Em. Will and Benny both hollered and squeezed us together. Small laughter erupted.

“I have been blessed with such an amazing neighborhood, life, and soulmate but I am even more blessed that our youngest was offered a position in London while our oldest will be taking my place the next school year. Thank you all again and enjoy.”

Suddenly it felt claustrophobic. Everyone turned to say congratulations to you. You were surrounded and all you needed was an escape. But everyone was hugging and asking you questions.

While your own thoughts were running wild. How did your mom know about London? You didn’t take the job. Where’s Frankie? Oh my god where’s Frankie? The one that stuck out the most was you had to clear this up with your parents and especially Frankie. Em grabbed you and dragged you away.

“London?” She screamed and questioned. You began shaking your head.

“No, no, no!” You yelled back at her. Your mom had come up to you both and intervened.

“Mijas, what's wrong?” She asked.

“Mom, how did you know about London?” You asked, growing impatient.

“You buttdialed me in one of your meetings. ‘M sorry honey if you had a whole idea to tell us and if I ruined it-”

“Mom, I didn’t take the London job. I took the position of being media manager. A job where I could live here. Be here with, ugh fuck!” You screamed the last part feeling all the emotions rush through you. Benny, Will and Santiago walked over towards you. You wanted to burst out crying knowing Frankie had left. Again.

“Where is he?” You ran up to Benny. Benny shook his head and began to speak.

“He um, he left. We don’t know where too though. Maybe the creek?”

You looked towards Pope and he had a sorry gaze towards you. No you're not taking apologies. You need to make this right.

“Give me keys.” You raised your hand outward. Pope placed his keys and you din;t even say thank you. You just ran towards the cars.

You drove past the creek, school, and finally you saw the truck in his driveway. You parked quickly and ran towards the door. Tears already welling up your eyes. When you knocked and there was no answer to the door your heart began to speed up. Pope had to have keys to his place. And luckily you found the fit. Opening the door you searched for him, but he was sitting on the couch ushering a whiskey.

“Frankie please let me explain.” You said as you rounded the corner.

“Explain what?” He said moving towards the kitchen, that's when you saw his tear stained cheek.

“Explain how you're gonna move to London, how you’re gonna be able to do what you always wanted to do. You already left once, why do it twice?”

“Frankie.”

“Do you know how much joy I have when you call or text me. Or when you even fucking show up for your weekend here once a year. Do you know how much I yearn to gain a little more from you?”

“Frankie please.”

“No, please go ahead and break me one more time.” He said.

“Frankie, I didn’t take the job.” You had lost your temper and began to lose your control over your voice.

“What?”

“Do you know how much I yearned for you to call me and tell me to come back home? Do you know how lonely I was? I cried every night for two months, every holiday, birthday. I know I could live without you but fuck Frankie I didn’t want too.” Frankie had now moved back from behind the kitchen counter to be in front of you.

“Frankie, I was scared. I was a kid and I was so in love with you. I made myself board that airplane and I regretted it the instant I buckled my seatbelt. I wanted to see the world, but the only thing I truly wanted was to see the world with you.” At this point tears were both falling freely between the two of you.

“I only came back home to make sure this is what I wanted. To make sure that I would hate London. I came back to see if I could fix my mistakes.”

“Where are you working?” Frankie had now asked.

“I took the media manager position. I can work wherever I want.” You said now quietly. Frankie nodded trying to comprehend everything. Twenty minutes ago he thought he had lost you again, but now here you were in his house, confessing to him that you were too in love with him, that you cried everyday just like he had.

“Frankie please say something.”

“You’re not leaving?” He asked another question which drove you past patience.

“Frankie I will leave right now if you don’t-” Suddenly you were embraced by his lips. Before you could withdraw your mind from its far places, his arms were around you. You felt that rush of helplessness, the sinking yielding, the surging tide of warmth that left you limp. Just like he did all those times before. He kissed you, softly at first, and then with a swift gradation of intensity that made you cling to him. His insistent mouth was parting your shaking lips, sending wild waves along your nerves, evoking from your sensations you had never known you would be capable of feeling again. And before a swimming giddiness spun you round and round, you knew that you were kissing him back.

You pull away slowly. But then you both were kissing again. It shows you that every other kiss you’ve had without Frankie has been wrong. Both of you are kissing like crazy. Like your lives depend on it. Frankie’s tongue slips inside your mouth, gentle but demanding, and it’s nothing like you've ever experienced with him before. Your fingers wrap around his hat and pull it off, and move to grip his hair, pulling him even closer. He pushes you backward and you’re up against the kitchen table. The weight of his body on top of yours is extraordinary. You feel him—all of him—pressed against you. His face has his signature stubble and it rubs your skin but you don’t care, you don’t care at all. He feels wonderful. His hands are everywhere, and it doesn’t matter that his mouth is already on top of yours, you want him closer but he pulls away.

“You promised me forever and always. Is it forever now?” He asked with a certain amount of need in his voice. You nodded quite ferociously and pulled him in to seal the deal.

“Forever and always Francisco. You will have me forever and I will always love you.”

Leaning forward he sealed the deal, and for a long time it won't be the last seal the deal kiss.