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need-a-fugue · 2 years

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I’m so glad you liked it!! 💕

The Rusty Nail

A Triple Frontier fic

Pairing: Frankie "Catfish" Morales x fem!reader

Summary: Frankie plans the perfect proposal, but, well, things don't quite go according to plan...

Warnings: language, depiction of gnarly injury, bunch of asshole friends giving each other shit

Word count: uuuummmm.... about 9K... I may have gotten a little carried away... 🙄

It’s already almost ten, well past the time your nights out typically start wrapping up – We’re not old. We’re just… tired – yet here you are, strapped into the passenger’s seat of Frankie’s old Ford, heading out to the dive bar on the very edge of the county line.

It’s been the gathering spot seemingly forever, that shitty little hole in the wall that the boys had been frequenting since long before you ever fell into pace beside them. Over the years, they’d meet up after long absences – deployments and training exercises, Will’s traveling hoorah! pep talks, Santiago’s wanderlust-fueled odd jobs – and immediately fall back into the same old rhythm once surrounded by the familiar stench of mildew and stale beer. They’d come out just two at a time, one helping the other drink away a shitty day. They’d gather in a far off corner and pour out a shot for Tom on his birthday. On his kids’ birthdays. On the anniversary of the day he died. They’d make the drive out for lady’s night at least once a month in the hopes of scoring a desperate townie – though Frankie still claims he was never involved in those particular meetups. And they’d head over after each of Benny’s local fights to either celebrate or help him drown out the pain of a loss.

It was actually after one of Ben’s fights – a decidedly unsanctioned fight – that the Miller brothers first brought you out to their grimy little home away from home. They claimed that they needed to repay you for the stellar stitch job you performed that night – Benny’s face having been split from hairline to eyebrow after what he claimed was a damn cheap shot – with a drink. Or several. As though rewarding a harried resident with alcohol just for doing her job were a thing.

But the fact was, you had been utterly inundated in the ER that night, all of the asinine idiots coming out of the woodwork to howl at the full moon, doing stupid shit that got their faces busted. Your shift had ended nearly two hours prior and you were still being pulled in a hundred different directions. The man in front of you had a sparkling grin that didn’t drop, not even as you stabbed his face full of lidocaine. And his brother stood stoically by, applauding your extreme patience in a time where literally everyone else around you was acting like an ungrateful, exasperated asshole. You needed a drink.

So you discharged your final two patients, grabbed a friend who’d just finished a shift in the far less hectic maternity ward – the same friend Benny has an arrangement with to this day – and headed out for that crappy, dingy bar for a night of escapist fun that ultimately changed the course of your entire life.

But no matter how many great memories you have of that place, well, it’s still a shithole.

You let out a small groan as the truck hits a bump in the road, follow it up with a rather disgruntled huff, and roll your eyes when you hear Frankie snort a laugh from the driver’s seat. You glare at him. “Someday we’ll be able to meet up somewhere else, right? Maybe a place not on the verge of getting shut down by the health department?”

He cocks a crooked smile at you. “Pretty sure that’s why they don’t serve food. No health code to live up to.”

You settle back into your seat with a pout. “Gross.”

“I’ll take you out somewhere nice tomorrow, baby,” Frankie tells you as he reaches over and takes hold of your left hand. His eyes remain focused on the road ahead, the truck’s headlights cutting through the dark fog left behind from almost a full week of rain. His thumb moves to press into the ring on your finger, starting again the gentle to-and-fro nudge of the giant gem that he’d been absently doing ever since the band was first slid into place just a few days ago. “You nervous?” he asks – teases – as the crooked grin stretches across his entire face.

You crane your head a bit out the window and suck in a long, deep breath, taking in the still-cool air of dawning spring, perking your ears to catch the subtle symphony of bleating frogs, a sound that, in no time at all, will turn into that familiar cacophony that heralds the coming of summer. “No,” you mutter, voice muted by the incoming wind. “I’m not nervous.” You turn to face him, surprised to find him looking now at you, his eyes bouncing easily back and forth between your shadowed face and the sprawling backroad in a controlled and practiced motion. You raise a brow – almost accusing – and state simply, “I’m in pain.”

He doesn’t laugh, doesn’t say a word. He just turns back to the road, smirk still plastered to his face, and drives the remaining twenty minutes or so out to the bar.

“Hey, there they are!” Santiago calls out from a table in the corner the moment you and Frankie enter. He stands up and raises his beer in a salute as you two walk over, then envelopes you in a warm, lingering hug before giving Frankie a sharp pop on the shoulder. “I got the next round,” he says, hopping away in a flurry to get more drinks.

Santi had never – not once – asked you what you wanted to drink. From the first time you met – a year or so after that initial outing with the Miller boys – he made a game out of guessing your favorites, gauging your mood, and supplying you with the perfect pick me up accordingly. The first time, he’d been right on with a Magners, the smooth cider hitting the spot after a long summer hike. Second time was an epic fail with a horrid IPA, not that you were really in the mood for much that night anyway, having just gotten off a double shift. But he made up for it on his next visit, fetching you a Sex on the Beach – three, actually – just the thing to get you out of your own head after losing a patient mere hours before.

You watch now as he skitters off to the bar, eyeing a couple of women as he goes, and you roll your eyes fondly, a tingle of anticipation building in your chest. “So,” Will speaks up from your left, an odd edge to his voice as you slide into the seat next to him. “How was the trip?” You glance his way and see a teasing sparkle in his eye, the corner of his mouth raised in a subdued smile that very clearly says, I know.

“Good,” Frankie answers before you get a chance to. “Mostly. Thanks again, man.”

You reach out and grab Will’s beer, take a long pull from it before saying, “Yeah, I had no idea you two had family with such… taste.”

“And money,” Frankie interjects.

Your hand remains on Will’s drink – your left hand – ring finger purposefully tapping a tink-tink rhythm on the glass as you stare him down, daring him to take notice. He narrows his eyes a bit, never breaking your gaze, refusing to take the bait. Oh yes, he knows. “Second cousins,” he metes out with a vague shrug.

“Alright,” you hear from your right, turning in surprise to see that Santi has already returned with your drinks. A simple round of beers – cheap beers – that causes a disappointed frown to pull at your face. “PBR?”

He nods – “Why?” – and raises an almost conspiratorial brow – “Is that not good enough for this occasion?”

You roll your eyes. “You fucker.”

“Excuse me?” he asks with a laugh.

You turn to Frankie and quickly take note of the stifled snicker that’s turning his cheeks pink, his head ducked to avoid eye contact. “Are you shitting me?” You give him a little shove and it’s just enough to cause the chuckle he’d been trying to hold in to sputter out freely. “They already know?”

Ben’s face contorts as he cocks his head to look at you from across the small, sticky table. “Know what?” he asks, eyes jumping from you to each of the surrounding men. “What?”

Will reaches out and pries your hand from his beer, turns it in his grip, and holds it up for his brother to see. Benny’s mouth falls open as he takes in the ring, the diamond sparkling even in the low light of the bar. “No shit?” he sputters out, wide grin splitting his face as his gaze bounces between you and your new fiancé. “No fucking shit?”

Frankie just nods, head still a bit ducked, almost bashful. And you can’t help but smile at that. Despite being so excited to share the news – even though, obviously two of the three friends here already knew – he still can’t help but close in on himself when made the center of attention. It’s sweet and endearing, and it sends a jolt of warmth through your center.

“Congratulations, man,” Will says, his voice low and sincere as he reaches around you to pat Frank on the shoulder. On its way back, his hand clenches your bicep, arm tugging you into a swift side hug as he continues to hold Frankie’s soft and modest stare. “You’re a lucky man.”

“Wait a minute,” Ben interjects, confusion pulling at his features. “You knew?” he asks his brother. Then, turning to Santi, “And you?” He glares across the table at Frankie, eyes wide, mouth agape. “Why the hell didn’t I know? I’m your best friend!”

“Oh, you are?” Santiago chimes with a grin as he takes a long pull from his beer.

Frankie just shakes his head, wide, beautiful smile now stretched across his entire face, the subtle blush still peppering his cheeks. “Sorry, man. But… c’mon. You can’t keep a secret to save your life.”

His countenance shifts into something both incredulous and offended. “I was Special Ops. I went on missions that no one knows about to this day.” A sharp scoff sounds, but his tone is more disappointed than defensive when he bleats out, “Can’t keep a secret, my ass.”

You turn to him then, narrowing your eyes accusingly, trying hard to conceal the playful smile that begs to tug at your lips. “Remind me, Ben, when you found out about me and Frankie, how long did it take you to tell everyone?”

He trains a disbelieving glare your way, an annoyed grunt pulling from the back of his throat. “Um, I’m sorry,” he utters slowly, methodically, “but when I come across two people fucking in the bathroom like a couple of horny teenagers, I am required to go tell every single person I see what just happened. That wasn’t a secret.”

“No,” Frankie mutters. “It was gossip.” He looks his friend straight in the eye, pointed and serious. “You are a fucking gossip.”

“I don’t like this side of you, Fish,” he replies before turning his stare on you. “You really wanna marry this guy? The kind of guy who just… turns on his friends? Calls them hateful names?”

Santi gives him a harsh elbow to the side to shut him up, ignores the plaintive, ow, it elicits, and raises his beer high. “To the happy couple!” he effuses, not even waiting for everyone to clink in cheers before he pulls his drink back for a giant gulp. You’re a little slow on the uptake, the sudden toast catching you off guard, and you don’t even think about reaching out to grab the bottle with your heavily bandaged right hand. But – oof– it fucking hurts to keep a grip on it while raising high. And you end up letting it linger in midair for barely a moment before giving up on the cheers and instead – haltingly, painstakingly – lowering your hand. But Santiago notices all the same, his expression changing on a dime from drunken contentment to suddenly sober concern. “What the fuck?”

“It’s not that bad,” Frankie interjects, coughing around his swift swallow. He reaches out and wraps a hand around your wrist, precluding you from bringing the beer to your wincing lips. “It looks worse than it is,” he says, the words sounding false and practiced.

You tug away from him, eager to take a damn drink, and mutter simply, “Says the guy who doesn’t have tetanus,” before precariously shifting the bottle in your grip and chugging at least of a quarter of the beer at once.

He rolls his eyes. “You don’t have tetanus.”

And you swallow thickly, setting down the bottle and gingerly stretching the fingers on your injured hand back out. “I could have.”

“They gave you a shot,” he states simply before leveling you with a rather grave stare. “Which you should’ve already had.”

“Just because I wasn’t up to date on my tetanus shot doesn’t give you permission to take me to the middle of nowhere and stab me with rusty nails,” you counter with a challenging glare. Frankie doesn’t back down, his stare shifting into something almost reprimanding. You’d been teasing him and baiting him mercilessly for the last four days, and at this point he’s well past the point of feeling guilty about what happened – at least in these moments of you taunting him – and more mired in the depths of annoyance.

“Okay,” Will drawls out after a tense moment of silence. His eyes narrow as they slowly move back and forth between you and your fiancé. “What the hell happened out there?”

Benny leans in from the other side of the table, a teasing twinkle peppering his gaze as he asks, “Fish, did you threaten her with rusty nails to get her to say yes to you?” He clicks his tongue in a tsk tsk tsk and relaxes back into his seat. “That would actually explain a lot.”

“That hurts, Ben,” Frankie shoots out. “Really. I thought you were my best friend.”

“I thought so too,” he replies, bringing his beer back up to his lips. “But now I’m learning there’s a whole different side to you…”

Frankie rolls his eyes, so deep and exaggerated that you actually cringe, knowing it must hurt. “I didn’t stab her,” he blurts out, more than a hint of defensiveness winding around the words. He ducks his head again, though this time in a pained, guilty way, no longer cute and endearing. And you almost regret poking fun at the situation. Almost.

You turn to the others at the table, gaze sweeping from each to each. “He claims that it wasn’t supposed to go that way.”

When your eyes land on Santi, you see that his expression is still holding that same genuine concern it had when he first took note of your injury. He locks onto your gaze for a moment before snapping his attention over to Frankie just as the man to your right sadly mutters, “No. That definitely was not part of my plan.”

“Wait a minute,” Santi starts, eyes narrowing as he studies his friend. “The plan? Tell me this didn’t happen when you proposed. It was something when you got home, right? Or… a fishing accident while you were at the cabin or something?” Frank says nothing, simply clearing his throat awkwardly as he continues to look away. “Fish, how bad did you fuck this up?”

His eyes spring up to connect with Santi’s. “She said yes,” he defends, issues out as proof that he didn’t – not completely, at least – fuck anything up.

Benny slaps his hands together, the loud clap jarring everyone at the table. His face is split with pure joy when he emits a swift giggle and asks, “Are we gonna get the story?” He steels his expression, props his chin on his hand, and actually flutters his lashes as Frankie, blatantly mocking as his voice pitches high and he declares, “Tell us all how you proposed to the lady, Catfish.”

You jump in almost immediately, feeling the hesitation spilling off of Frankie as he awkwardly twists in the seat next to you. “I got this, babe,” you say with a frighteningly sly grin before leaning forward, capturing everyone’s attention with a pronounced ahem, and beginning the story.

“This place seriously belongs to the Millers?” you asked, mouth hanging agape as you spun in a slow circle to take in the giant cabin and surrounding area. The Appalachian peaks rose just beyond the log house, flanking it on either side. A huge sparkling lake lay out ahead, complete with a private dock that jutted out into the silvery plane of water. Your meandering arc finally landed you back on the truck, and on Frankie, smiling wide as he pulled your bags from the bed. You let out a trilling laugh. “No fucking way.”

He shrugged nonchalantly before letting out a small grunt as he shouldered all the bags at once. “It belongs to one of their cousins. Or a cousin of a cousin or something,” he explained, hopping dramatically away from you when you reached out to try and relieve him of a bag or two. “I got it,” he said, that damn, glowing smile somehow growing even wider as he shot a wink your way and hopped up the short stairs to the sprawling front porch.

You gathered the groceries from the cab – a couple half-full bags of chips you two had been munching on during the ride up; the basic egg, bread, cheese combination made for any vacation destination with its own kitchen; and, of course, coffee and beer – and followed hot on his heels. Once again, you were struck dumb for a long moment when you entered, breath taken away by the great room alone – the huge stone fireplace, the oversized leather sofa, the books lining the far wall – not to mention the absolutely pristine kitchen where you set down your stuff.

“No way has Benny ever been here,” you said, almost to yourself. You turned and saw Frankie walking out of what you presumed was the bedroom – or the master bedroom as there must have been more in a place this size – and gave him a very serious look. “No one in their right mind would ever let that man in a place this nice.”

“Oh, I dunno.” He glanced around for a moment, taking the house in. “There’s not a lot of stuff, you know? Not much for him to break.”

“Still,” you shrugged as you pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and flopped down into it.

Frankie glided over and dropped his hands to your shoulders, his fingers pressing and pulling and kneading with a perfect pressure. “You tired, baby?” he asked as his thumbs dug into those most tender points – the areas he knew you carried all your tension.

Your head rolled back so you could gaze up at him, a sly arching grin tugging at your lips. “Depends on what you want to do. Hike? Yes, I’m exhausted, can’t move, won’t go. Lay by a roaring fire in a cabin owned by someone in the Miller family and fuck like wild animals who just roamed down from the woods? I feel a second wind coming.”

A quick bark of a laugh flew out of him. “Wild animals, huh? Like those bears who can figure out how to open doors?”

You nodded – “Did you see the video of the black bears taking over someone’s hot tub?” – and immediately jumped up, causing Frankie to leap back in surprise. “Is there a hot tub here?!”

He laughed again before pulling you in close and ghosting his lips over yours in a slow, soft, chaste kiss. “There’s a jacuzzi in the bedroom,” he whispered at the corner of your mouth. “People in the tub, or wild animals by the fire?”

You leaned in and captured his lips with your own, the kiss made deeper but faster. “So many choices,” you muttered into him. “So many choices.”

“What the fuck?” Ben spits out suddenly, pulling your focus back to the present. “Fuck like wild animals?” He lets out a loud scoff. “That is not the story I was asking for.”

You shrug. “I’m setting the scene.”

He raises a stern, pointed finger in your direction. “Unless your hand got torn open by bear, I don’t wanna hear another word about wild animals. And for the record, I have been to that cabin. Several times, and I never broke a damn thing.”

“Except your arm when you were twelve,” Will interjects. He gives you a side eye – “Jumped out of a tree like a damn fool.” – and wraps his smugly smiling lips around the rim of his beer bottle.

“Can you just…” Santi interjects next, his entire presence showing an edgy sort of impatience. “Get to the part about Fish fucking up the proposal.”

You honestly had no idea what time you two went to bed that night, nor how long after you finally fell asleep. But however much sleep you had managed to get, it wasn’t enough, and you were 100% not okay with being roused the next morning.

It began as a simple nudge to the shoulder, a soft coo of, “Wake up, baby,” flittering delicately to your ear. But you didn’t budge. The nudge then turned into a gentle shake, still soft and tender, but a bit more insistent. That earned him little more than a disgruntled grunt in response, prompting his voice to lift from the sweet near-whisper to a more adamant, “Time to get up. I’ve got something for you.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet you did,” Benny smarts as he wiggles his brows at Frankie.

Will leans across the table and pops his little brother upside the head with practiced ease. “Thought you didn’t want any more talk of fucking in the story,” he reminds him, a warning note to his features. He ignores Ben’s displeased huff and turns your way, offers an encouraging nod. “Try to keep it PG,” he requests. “I’m already gonna have nightmares of Fish getting railed by bear like fucking Leonardo DiCaprio.”

You snort out a quick laugh, the sound almost enough to cover Frankie’s disgusted moan, before continuing right from where you left off.

You rolled onto your stomach and buried your face in the pillow, words low and muffled as they seeped from your sleep-stained lips. “Don’t want it. Had enough of it last night. Take a rest, Francisco.”

You didn’t see him rolling his eyes, but there wasn’t a doubt in your mind that the time between your barely coherent mutterings and his response was filled with just that dramatic gesture. “C’mon,” he said then, pulling himself upright and giving you a quick slap on the ass. “You said you wanted to see the sun rise over the mountains. Let’s do it.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Benny interrupts again. “The sunrise? In the morning? Are you serious?” He shakes his head and looks over at Frankie. “No way did she say she wanted to see that.”

“She said it,” he counters.

“In fairness,” you state, “I’ve also said that I want to go bungee jumping. And scuba diving. But let’s be real, some things you just say.”

Santi lets out a soft chuckle from his corner of the table. “She’s probably the least morning person I know. What were you thinking, hermano?”

“Romance!” he barks out, as though that’s all the explanation needed.

Ben laughs again, shaking his head warmly. “Is it possible that we all know your girl better than you do?” He stills and levels both you and Frankie with a teasing glower. “You think you two kids might be rushing into this whole marriage thing? Sounds like you still have some stuff to learn about each other.”

“How boring would the rest of their lives be if they went into this knowing everything?” Will counters as he gives your shoulder a soft bump.

You shoot him a sly look. “See now, that is a romantic sentiment.”

“It was romantic,” Frankie argues, stiffening in his chair. He leans forward, his eyes bouncing from person to person to make sure and draw everyone’s attention before picking up the story where you left off, ready and eager to lay out just how sweet and perfect his proposal was. Or… how sweet and perfect it was meant to be, at least.

Your head popped up, mussed hair in your face, bleary eyes blinking wildly as they tried to take in the dimly lit room. To Frankie, everything about you in that moment was perfect. The bewildered look on your sleep-stained face. The wild halo of hair framing your confusion. The ridiculously pouty, “Wha?” that cracked from your lips. A shiver of pure nervous – and delighted – energy shot through him, coiling tight in his core as he watched you roll onto your side and glare up at him. He arched a brow, quirked a grin, and that was when you noticed he was fully dressed… up and awake, despite it being… “What time is it?”

He swallowed down the jitters, the childlike excitement, and schooled his expression before declaring with a rather dramatic flair, “It’s time for the sun to rise. And that means you too, mi amor.”

Your face fell heavily back into the pillow, a muffled, “Nooooo,” echoing through the otherwise silent room.

His hands were on you in an instant, the sudden press of them into your sides causing a surprised squeak to burst past your lips as he pulled you forward and swiftly burritoed you inside the soft quilt you’d been hiding beneath. In one swift motion, he slid his arms beneath you and scooped you up, gathering you to his broad chest. “Yes!” he nearly shouted, the single, enthusiastic word riding over the top of your disgruntled groans.

He traipsed through the cabin to the front, kicked open the front door and carried you bridal style out onto the porch. “Nooo,” you whined again, burying your face into his shoulder. “Too cold,” you muttered into him. “Too early.” But you reached your arms outside of the quilted cocoon all the same, wrapped them around him to cling tight to his neck. He smiled wide and bright, noting right away that you made no attempt to drop your grip, even as the cool morning air nipped into your exposed skin.

“The sun rises early, baby,” he replied, hoisting you a bit in his arms as he made his way down the stairs. “Kinda its thing.”

“Wait…” You peeled your face from his chest and looked out ahead, confusion painting your features. “Where are we going? Where are you taking me?”

He responded only with a short chuckle as he made his way out further from the cabin, the early morning haze leaving the world a soft shade of gray around you. Through the breaking twilight, you could see the dock straight ahead, jutting out into the mist-covered lake. Once you arrived there, you saw that he’d set up a whole… thing. Atop a laid-out fleece blanket there sat a steaming carafe of hot coffee flanked by two mugs, one of which already looked to be a third of the way full of cream – just the ratio you preferred for your morning cup. A small platter was beside the coffee, covered with a plaid towel, undoubtably hiding some sort of food, though you had no recollection of having grabbed anything more than the basics at the store on the way up to the cabin. Your brow furrowed in confusion, voice – however – perking with an entranced sort of curiosity. “How long have you been up?”

He set you down on the dock with a groan, never regretting the decidedly romantic gesture of actually carrying you out there, but feeling his back begin to curse for him the act all the same. “A while,” he said, giving a quick stretch – one that resulted in a loud and clear pop from somewhere between his shoulder blades – before settling down beside you.

You leaned forward and deeply inhaled the glorious scent of coffee as he poured out two hot mugs, handing you the first. “Are you sure I said I wanted to watch the sun rise?” you asked with a teasing cadence, sly smile blooming.

“Pretty sure,” he said, unveiling two giant cinnamon rolls from beneath the plaid napkin.

Your eyes immediately tracked to the sweet treats, widening with delight before settling back on him. You brought the coffee-filled mug to your mouth, gingerly took a sip, and asked, “Was I drunk at the time?”

Frankie shook his head, wrapping his cold hands around the hot mug but never indulging in a drink. Afterall, he’d already had two cups as he prepped the sunrise picnic. And as he attempted to make up for the fact that he hadn’t slept a wink all night. “I don’t think so.”

“Was I sleep deprived?”

He shot you a get serious stare, blowing a swift breath out of his nose as he did so. “When have you not been sleep deprived lately?”

It had been a source of contention between the two of you for a while now. Frankie would see you come home after a long shift – one that you never left on time following – and collapse into an exhausted heap in front of him, spouting nonsense about being fine and not tired at all. He’d roll his eyes and give an exasperated sigh, but sat and tenderly rubbed your back as you drifted off in front of the TV all the same. He’d tell you the next morning that he was worried about you, lecture you about taking better care of yourself, chide you for not living by the advice you gave your patients. You’d tell him he was being dramatic, remind him that you operated best under pressure, rub at the worry line caving between his eyebrows until it settled and eased beneath your finger.

When he first brought up the idea of a vacation – just a long, relaxing weekend in the mountains – you actually worried that he might slash the tires on the truck once you arrived to trap you far, far away from work… that the nearly constant disputes over your arduous schedule may have finally pushed him to the brink.

You took another swig of coffee and gave him a dubious look. “You admit that I’m sleep deprived, yet you tear from rest to bring me out to a freezing lake at the ass crack of dawn.”

He shrugged casually. “You’re the one who keeps saying that you don’t need sleep.”

And you let out a scoff wrapped tight in a laugh. “Yeah, and you’re the one who keeps calling me a liar.”

“Well, I call ‘em like I see ‘em.”

“Mmhmm,” you mumbled into the rim of your mug as your eyes finally drifted beyond his shoulder to take in the blooming pink and purple hues just beginning to arc over the horizon.

He stared at you for a long, silent moment. Watched as your face relaxed, gaze settling on the mountains in the distance, shoulders slumping forward in repose. Again, a trill of anticipation shot through his bones, the odd feeling waning as another sensation – calm, certainty… love – settled into chest with a soothing warmth. “I only say it because I care,” he murmured finally. “I want you to take care of yourself.”

You cocked your head and returned your gaze his way. “I know.”

He gave a slow, steady nod, his eyes dropping down as if to study the rough cedar planks of the dock. Your brow crinkled as you watched the crease in his forehead pull taut. “I want to take care of you,” he muttered then, almost shyly, almost to himself. He looked back up at you, a warm sincerity pooling in his dark brown eyes. “I want you to let me take care of you.”

You smiled over the lip of your mug, the expression never quite making it to your eyes as your sleep-addled mind worked to sift through the meaning behind his words. “I mean, I’m not opposed to you carrying me back inside after all of this” you said with a shrug. “I’m not wearing any shoes.”

He laughed then, ducked his head a bit again, looked out at the lake surrounding you for a lingering moment that only heightened the sudden anxiety you felt creeping beneath your skin. “I want to…” he began, before drifting off and releasing a long, deep sigh. When he looked back up at you, locked onto your eyes, dropped a single warm hand to your quilt-covered knee, you felt a hit of apprehension quiver inside of you like a rubber band about to snap. “I want to take care of you,” he said simply. “Forever. You know that, right? That I want to be there… I want to be with you forever?”

You nodded. Sure. You’d talked about the future before, about how you both saw that future including the other. Always. You opened your mouth to speak, readying yourself to say… something. To tell him you felt the same… had he not known? To ask what the serious tone was all about… was he mad at you? But you quickly slammed your mouth shut, teeth clanking loudly together, when you saw him reach his free hand into his jacket pocket and pull out a small black box.

For a too-long moment, he simply sat, utterly still, just staring at the item in his hand. “Frankie,” you finally muttered, a mere soft prompt. A beautiful break into his nervous reverie.

His eyes flew up to meet yours and, “I love you,” tumbled quickly from his lips, the words smashed together into a single, sincere breath. He pulled his other hand from your knee and popped open the box, glanced only fleetingly at the ring inside before training a pair of glassy eyes on you. “I love you more than anything… And I… I want to marry you. I mean,” he sputtered for a moment, nervously shaking his head. “I want you to marry me. I mean… will you marry me?”

“That’s what you said?” Santiago busts in, his shoulders pulled taut, face pinched in disbelief as he nearly flies out of his chair. “Damn it, Fish, we talked about this!”

His pure zeal alone – the enthusiasm he’s all of a sudden showing for the story… the story of your marriage proposal – causes a sweet, trilling giggle to trail out of you. You smile wide in his direction, voice almost cloying as you ask, “You did? What did you talk about?”

He turns to face you, his eyes pooling with a deep, cutting candor as he replies, “I told him to think about what he was going to say. To make it… special. Make it right.” He settles back into his seat, his elbows falling to the tabletop as he leans heavily over, stare directed wholly on you, as though no one else in the bar exists. “You are special, bonita,” he tells you, a fierceness to his tone. “You’re smart and beautiful and sweet. Patient and funny and kind. You should be told that. You should be told…” He shifts back in his chair and clears his throat, lips pinched tightly together as he seems to internally struggle with what to say next. Then he shakes his head and lets out a sigh, brows shooting high as once again connects with your eyes. “Anhelo su boca, su voz, su pelo. Silencioso y muerto de hambre, rondo a través de las calles. El pan no me alimenta, amanecer me interrumpe, yo busca todo el día para la medida líquida de sus pasos. Tengo hambre de su risa lisa, sus manos el color de una cosecha salvaje, hambre para las piedras pálidas de sus unas, yo deseo comer su piel como una almendra entera.*”

“Jesus,” Ben drawls out, his mouth falling agape as his eyes bounce back and forth between you – an almost giddy grin slowly taking over your face – and the still very serious seeming Santi. “What…”

Frankie issues out a sharp scoff, a snort of a breath so dismissive – so annoyed – that you find yourself almost vibrating with stifled laughter. “That’s not even…” he mutters, twisting anxiously in his seat beside you, irritated glare trained on the man across from him. “You didn’t…”

Your nose wrinkles, smile only growing as you nearly laugh out, “That’s Pablo Neruda.”

Santi nods, taking another pull from his nearly empty beer. “Yeah. It is. And the fact that you know that is just one more thing to be celebrated about you,” he says, shooting a reprimanding look at Frank. “You should’ve celebrated her… not just babbled like an idiota.”

“Fuck, Pope,” Will chuckles under his breath. “Are you trying to propose to her?”

“If I were, I’d have done it right.”

Frankie’s shoulders stiffen, his glare thickening. “All you told me was to make it romantic.”

He gives a noncommittal shrug and reclines back in his chair. “Yeah, well, I though that you and I shared the same romantic sensibilities. Didn’t realize I needed to break it all down for you.”

“Dude,” Ben sputters, “you just quoted a whole damn poem at her. I’ve seen Nicholas Sparks movies that are less fucking corny than that.”

You cock your head at him, lips pulling into a crooked, joking grin. “Why are you watching Nicholas Sparks movies?”

He raises a single brow. “Because I am an actual romantic.”

“Because he wants to get laid,” Frankie corrects, his hand slipping under the table and tightening on your thigh with a sudden anxious desperation.

Ben merely shrugs. “Fair trade. I can handle two hours of a shitty movie. Although… not all of them are that shitty.” He turns to look at Santiago. “Pope, how many hours did you it take you to memorize that poem?”

He too shrugs. “Committed it to memory back in high school. Took a while, sure. But it has never once failed me.”

Frankie shakes his head dully. “You should not have been saying that to teenage girls.”

“Okay,” you interrupt, a little louder than intended. “See, what you two are talking about here isn’t romance. It’s trickery. You’re trying to convince women of something that you don’t actually think or… or feel just to get into their pants.”

Frankie removes his hand from your leg and instead throws his arm around you, giving your shoulder a gentle squeeze. “That’s right, baby. They’re monsters. Good thing I didn’t listen to them.”

“Hey man,” Ben nearly shouts, “you never even gave me the chance to give you advice!”

“And what would you have said?” Santi asks him with a scoff. “Give her a notebook?”

“What?” he asks, brow crinkling in absolute bewilderment.

“The Notebook,” he spits out. “Isn’t that one of those movies? Doesn’t it have some kind of notebook or some shit in it?” He gives another flaky shrug and drains the rest of his beer. “Fuck, I don’t know. I’ve never watched that crap.”

“Okay, first of all,” he says, leveling a pointed finger at his friend. “That movie is a fucking classic. And secondly, the advice I would’ve given is, don’t stab your girl with a bunch of rusty nails.”

“One,” Frankie nearly growls out, his entire body going ramrod straight as he leans over the table and glares threateningly at Ben. “There was one rusty nail. And I did not stab her with it!”

“Sure, sure,” Will chimes in, the lazy, relaxed cadence to his voice quelling the heightened quality now permeating the air. “Why don’t you tell us what did happen, then, Fish? Where’d this rusty nail come from?”

“Wait,” you interject before he can continue on. “I just want to say that I thought what you said was perfect, baby,” you state, giving Frankie a look and a nod that conveys absolute finality. “I don’t need poetry. Or… whatever these Neanderthals think is romantic.”

“Hey,” Santi bleats, genuine offense in his tone.

From your left, “I always thought flowers were nice,” spills carelessly from Will’s lips.

You ignore them both, stare remaining trained on your fiancé. “You said you love me, and that’s all I need.” Frankie leans in to kiss you, moving a hint too slow as you pull away in a flurry and settle back into your seat with a smug smile painting your face. “And that’s exactly why I said yes.”

Your eyes bounced back and forth between him and the ring for what felt – to both you and Frankie – like an eternity. Finally – slowly – you reached out to touch the ring, your fingertip just barely tracing the top of the diamond. A mere breath of a, “yes,” fluttered out of you, the whisper of a word sounding like a booming declaration to your future husband’s ears.

He let out a huff of a laugh and hurriedly dug into the velvet box, pinching the precious piece of jewelry between his fingers as he reached into your quilted cocoon with his other hand to dig you out. In a fit of excitement, you wrestled yourself free from the blanket and whipped your left hand out – too fast, too hard – and accidentally backhanded Frankie in the chin.

He went to grab his face, chuckling under his breath as you frantically unwound your upper body from the quilt and reached out to press your trembling palms into his cheeks, “I’m sorry. Oh, baby, I’m sorry,” spiraling from your lips.

But as you went to cup his face, you caught his hand, hooked the fingers that held your ring, and spun it from his pinched grip. You both watched, silence squeezing in around you, time slowing, reeling, stumbling to a near halt as the ring fell between you. Down to the dock, bouncing once on the flannel blanket and then once more before carelessly dropping between two boards.

“Wait,” Santi interrupts, eyes wide in an incredulous glare. “Holy shit, Fish. That was a six thousand dollar ring!”

Across from you, Ben chokes on his beer, his plight only barely distracting you from that unexpected announcement. “I’m sorry, what?” you shoot out, your own eyes now bulging wide.

Will joins in with slow shake of his head, voice low and carrying more than a hint of disapproval as he asks simply, “You spent six grand on a piece of jewelry?”

Frankie lets out an annoyed sigh, mutters something about layaway, and grabs onto your left hand, holding it high to show, “We found the damn thing, didn’t we?” Another sigh slips past his lips and he settles your hand back on the table, dropping his warm palm atop it and lacing his fingers with yours.

“Okay,” you mete out, eyeing him suspiciously. “Yeah, so this is definitely something that we’re going to discuss later.”

“Little nervous about setting up a joint checking account now?” Will jokes.

“I’m a little nervous about how much debt I’m about to accrue,” you say, issuing out a long and depleting sigh.

“I’m sorry, bonita,” Santi snarks, an impatient drawl perking the edges of the endearment. “This whole thing is…” he shakes his head. “But what about the damn nail?”

“Right, yeah,” you mutter before forging on with the story.

Time creeped to a full stop as you both stared in horror down at the wide crack between the planks, and the dark water beneath that had swallowed up this most intimate and priceless of artifacts. You heard a sharp creak and your head flew up just in time to see Frankie leap from the side of the dock. “Wait!” you shrieked as you disentangled yourself from the quilt and scurried to the opposite edge.

You looked over the side and noticed the violent rippling of the water, still too dark without the aide of the sun for you to see beneath, but displaying that some sort of fight was occurring beneath the surface, just the same.

“Jesus,” Santi breathes out, utterly unamused. “It’s not like there were sharks hiding out in the lake.”

You shake your head. “Again,” you explain, tone filled with frustration, “I’m setting the scene,” before continuing on.

The water, dark and foreboding beneath you, seemed to have swallowed Frankie whole. Once the surface settled from his initial dive in, there was no further sign of him as he foraged along the floor of the lake. You knew – logically – that he was fine. He’d been a swimmer in high school. He could hold his breath forever. Oh, and it was only five or six feet deep there. Max. But still, the waiting was killing you. The longer he stayed beneath the surface of the lake, the more irrationally worried you became.

How long had it been? Could he really hold his breath that long? What if he hit his head on the dock and was unconscious… drowning?

On that thought alone, you found yourself flinging the quilt away and hurtling over the edge of the dock, the freezing water of barely sprung spring shocking you so badly that you jerked and stiffened the moment you went under. And slammed the back of your head into a cedar beam.

Now fully panicked – because if you hit your head, he probably had too, and he was probably now dying, just within your reach, drowning when only moments ago he had asked you to marry him – you sprung up out of the water, not even realizing that you were standing fully upright with your shoulders clearing the icy depths until you felt the mud and muck squish between your naked, steadily numbing toes.

“What the hell are you doing?” you heard from the other side of the dock. You sputtered and shook, the cold setting into your bones, as you spun around to look, to see drowned-rat Frankie staring back at you in horror.

He was still in the water, easily treading – must’ve been deeper on the other side – as his head peeked over the dock at you, taking in your wide-eyed, terror-stricken face. “I thought you were drowning!” you shouted over at him, hands angrily hitting the surface of the lake and splashing cool water into your gaping mouth.

He shook his head and let out an amused huff, the biting sound traveling through the still air. “Baby,” he said, voice low and confident. “I got this.” He shoved back from the dock, bouncing lightly in the water as he prepared to duck under again. “Get out and get dry. You’re gonna freeze.”

You watched him disappear back into the lake and muttered to yourself, “Already frozen,” before moving back towards the dock, shivers thrumming through your body. You took one final step forward, inwardly cursing both yourself and your future husband for… for… well, for this whole damn mess. And then, right in the midst of an internal, fucking idiot, your foot slid right out from under you, burrowing into the slick, silty bottom of the lake. Your opposite knee buckled and you pitched backward, flopping back beneath the water. But not before blindly grasping at the beams in front of you.

Your right hand caught the edge of the dock and clamped on tight, frantically trying to hold on so you could pull yourself upright. But as your body went under – and dirty, cold lake water spilled into your mouth and nose –

“Gross,” Ben interjects, disgusted pull to his features. “I hope you got some antibiotics for that shit.”

You roll your eyes and hold up your bandaged hand. “I was stabbed, remember? Yeah. I got some antibiotics.” You shake your head and pick back up where you left off.

As your body went under, your hand slipped along the rough beam of wood, sliding down it until it caught on something. You very nearly choked on the water still sputtering from your mouth, spitting around it as your face broke the surface and you let out an awful, piercing scream. You finally got your footing – more or less – toes squishing into the muck below as you moved to stand. But you couldn’t move your hand from its spot on the side of the dock. White-hot pain burned through you, jolting all the way up your arm, making you feel suddenly dizzy and sick – or maybe that was the lake water, or the hypothermia, or the lack of sleep – as you hurriedly wiped at your eyes with your left hand before looking over at your right.

You heard a giant splash from across the dock, Frankie shooting upright as he shouted out, “What?!” the single word laced with thinly veiled panic. “What happened?!”

But you couldn’t reply, too busy staring, dumbfounded, at the four inch nail piercing your flesh, the metal extrusion embedded through the length of your hand, from pinky to thumb.

“Gross,” Ben comments again, this time louder and more adamant.

Your eyes light onto him, a simple, commiserative, “I know,” falling from your lips as you fall back into the story.

You didn’t realize he’d been moving, hadn’t heard the splashes of his struggle to get to you, nor the sound of his voice continuing to call out, until he was by your side. “Oh, shit,” he muttered upon seeing your hand. You finally looked away from the gruesome scene, your wide eyes shifting over to him. The moment they met his gaze, his entire face softened, the fear and… disgusted quality both melting away and leaving a stoic glean to his features. He wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you to him, holding tight to your steadily shaking body. “Don’t worry, baby. I got you,” he said, that smooth baritone finished with a hint of absolute certainty.

Santi begins a slow nod from his side of the table. “Ah, yeah, he went all steely eyed motherfucker, huh?”

Your head whips from one side to the other as Will muses from your left, “Calm in a storm. Yep, when shit goes down, Fish’s got nerves of steel.”

Frankie’s arm tightens around you, his fingers giving your shoulder a quick grasp. “Scared the hell outta me,” he mutters a bit vaguely. “That scream? Fuck, I thought Jason Voorhes popped out of the lake or something.”

“I think I would’ve preferred that,” you snipe, unabashedly leaning further into his embrace. “He would’ve killed me faster. Less suffering.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t pretty,” Frankie sighs out before taking over the telling.

He held you close, your entire body trembling into him. His hand slid beneath the clinging hem of your shirt, fingers splaying on your naked skin beneath as he shook his head remorsefully for a single fleeting moment, kicking himself for bringing you out into the cold in nothing but a T-shirt and panties. “Okay,” he breathed out then, the word clearly denoting the beginning of some sort of project or operation, the precursor to an order merely issued as a suggestion.

His right hand slowly slid along the length of your forearm, creeping up to hold your wrist – and therefor the grossly pierced hand – in place. “Don’t,” you issued out in a meek whine, knowing what was coming.

He didn’t look at you, all of his attention trained instead on your hand and the giant nail protruding from it. His brow furrowed as he studied it from a few angles, trying to work out the best solution. “Okay,” he said again, his tongue jutting out to trace pensively along his bottom lip. “Okay.”

“Noooo,” you moaned, voice shaking along with your body.

He finally looked over at you, his expression remaining calm and fixed, even as he took in the blue tinge to your lips and the utter fear in your eyes. “Baby, we can’t live our lives attached to this dock. You gotta let me do this.” His hand tightened around your wrist and your breath stilled, the smallest sort of squeak spilling out of you. He glanced back at your hand, moved it just slightly to set it at the best angle, and he turned back and held tight to your desperate gaze. “On three, okay?” He didn’t give you the chance to respond, to even nod. He simply began to count. “One. Two.” And then he ripped your hand free.

“Oldest trick in the book,” Santi says. “Never trust the count of three.”

“Point is,” Frankie perks up, “I saved her life.”

“And now she’s gotta marry you because she’s indebted to you,” he muses with a nod. “Seems fair.”

Your brow furrows, face twisting in consternation. “I agreed to marry him before he saved my life.”

“Ah,” Frankie breathes out with a sly grin. “So you admit that I saved you. ‘Bout damn time.”

“I mean, she never would’ve been out there in the cold if you hadn’t dragged her out in the first place,” Benny states.

“And she wouldn’t have gone in the water if you hadn’t dropped the ring,” Will adds.

“Well,” you mutter blandly, “I did sort of… knock it out of his hand.”

Frankie gives your shoulder another squeeze, a touch that says very clearly, nah, baby, not your fault, and bounces an utterly unamused glare between Will and Ben. “And she never would’ve gotten snagged on a nail if your family had been better about basic dock maintenance.”

“Feel free to sue ‘em,” Benny smarts. “Katie and Joe are rich as fuck.”

Will reaches out and brushes his thumb over the engagement ring on your finger, studying it closely for a long moment before issuing out a long, “So…”

“Oh, yeah, man,” Ben starts as he too begins staring down at the diamond. “How the hell did you manage to find it?”

“Well…”

“He didn’t find it,” you state pointedly before taking over once again.

The moment your hand was tugged free, Frankie hauled you up and onto the dock. Sure, he’d been standing with his shoulders completely clear of the water, but it still seemed like a hell of a feat, especially considering that he managed to do it while still holding your wrist up high to keep your punctured hand out of the water. In seemingly one fell swoop, he chucked you up atop the cedar platform, popped up behind you, and wrapped you fully in both the quilt and small flannel blanket.

You didn’t even realize you were crying until his fingers – trembling almost as much as your own from the cold that he too was shrouded in – rose and wiped away the tears. “I’m sorry, baby,” he breathed out, his face a mask of grief. “I’m so sorry.”

You leaned into him and tried to quell the tears, tried to steady your breathing and limit the shaking. Your injured hand was still in his, his dark eyes working to assess the extent of the injury as he continued to apologize, each word slipping despondently from his lips. With your left, you opened up the quilt and reached out to wrap it around his soaked and shaking form, scooting closer and pulling him tight to you. As you laid your chin atop his shoulder, you found yourself squinting, the sun now bright just over the horizon. “The sunrise is nice as least,” you said, cringing at how warbly your voice sounded when it broke past your numb lips.

“We gotta get you cleaned up,” he muttered, seemingly to himself. “Gotta get you warm and cleaned up. And then to a doctor,” as though he hadn’t heard a word you said.

You nodded into him and dropped your head, your temple slowly sliding down his shoulder, then along his bicep. You felt him shift beneath you, all around you, as he tugged you closer, one hand rubbing your back in a frenzied sweep to try and warm you. And you settled into him, letting his soft words rumble up into you from his chest. Your lids grew heavy, but before closing your eyes completely, you caught sight of a small but blinding glimmer, a sharp reflection of the newly risen sun bouncing off of something lodged between the planks of cedar beneath you.

“Frank,” you mumbled into him, your voice sounding even worse than it had just a mere moment before. You narrowed your bleary eyes and did all you could to focus on the shiny spark below before pulling in a sudden gasp and shoving off of his chest. “Francisco!” you shouted, his name cracking at the edges.

He still had your hand in a death grip, the towel that had been hiding cinnamon rolls now soaked through with your blood as he kept it tightly wrapped in place. But you nearly jerked it away, almost managing to slip his tenacious grip as you lurched forward, bent over the small space between the boards. “What?” he asked, his voice betraying both concern and sudden irritation. “What the hell are you…”

But before he could finish his thought, you popped back upright, gleaming smile on your face and diamond ring pinched between your fingers. “It was stuck,” you stammered out, shoving the thing forward for him to see. “I saw it… in the sun… between… it didn’t fall…”

He grabbed the ring from your trembling – and admittedly, precarious – grip, and he shoved into the pocket of his jeans, his entire body seeming to squish as he moved his soaked legs to work it safely inside.

“Hey,” you complained. “That’s… that’s mine.”

He tucked your right hand up against your chest and wrapped the quilt back around you as he rose, wide and perfect smile shining on his face the entire time. “Uh, uh, baby,” he said, his voice sounding almost as shaky as yours. He tugged you close and stood with a longwinded groan, hiking you deeper into his arms. “Forget this shitshow ever happened,” he breathed into your ear as you nestled close. “I’ll ask again later,” stated with absolute intent the moment he made it back to the cabin.

“You mean to tell me there’s a whole other proposal story we have to sit through?” Will gripes.

“Nah,” you tell him with a grin. “I pulled it out of his pocket after we got changed and just… put it on.”

Frankie nods. “Didn’t even notice ‘til we were leaving the emergency room.”

You offer a half shrug and turn to shoot him a shit-eating grin. “Like I said, it’s mine.”

“Yeah,” Will agrees. “I’d say you earned it.”

“So the trip was a success,” Santi says, a statement rather than a question. He jumps up, his mood light once again now that he’s free to go get another drink. “Well, I’m not buying champagne, but I will get a round of shots. Or, ah, hell yeah!” he enthuses, snapping his fingers wildly before spinning towards the bar. “Five Rusty Nails coming up!”

* I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.

Silent, starving I prowl through the streets.

Bread does not nourish me, dawn disquiets me,

I search the liquid sound of your steps all day.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,

For your hands the color of the wild grain,

I hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,

I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

- Pablo Neruda

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need-a-fugue · 2 years

Text

Trustworthy (Chapter 9)

Summary: You’ve spent the last three years teaming up with Santiago Garcia on every mission you had a hand in coordinating… and the past several months plotting with him to take down the biggest bad to hit your radar. But even all your time at the DEA and all your experience in the field couldn’t have prepared you for this.

Pairing: Frankie “Catfish” Morales x Fem!Reader (slow burn)

Warnings: Panic attack, angst and regret, self-loathing… and comforting Frankie, which should really be a warning in and of itself.

Note: It was a loooong time coming - um, sorry about that? - but we're finally complete!

The following two days were a blur. The trek down to the beach. The adrenaline-fueled chase to the ocean. The swift and bumpy ride out to the boat. The journey to Curacao. All of it passed you by in a death-defying, frantic whirlwind that left your mind clouded with a thick and lingering haze set to last for at least two days more. The only thing you’re able to remember about those final days fleeing South America – the only thing you can recall with absolute certainty – is that Frankie remained plastered to your side for nearly every moment.

But now what? That’s the overwhelming question, right? Now that the perils of mountains and jungles – and helicopter rides – have been left behind. Now that you all have had the chance to shower and sleep and at least begin to heal – and eat real food. Now that the implacable fog of war has slowly begun to lift.. now what happens? Now what will you do?

Santiago had set up an appointment for this afternoon at a bank in the center of town, no more than two blocks from the cramped hotel where you all are staying. Tom’s body had been sent home yesterday evening, the money he died for now being all that remains as a tangible memory of this trip, this shit-brained scheme. You’re ready to be rid of it, wanting nothing more than to walk down to the beach and torch the rest in a bonfire bigger than the one you shared on the side of that mountain.

But you don’t tell anyone that, of course. Truthfully, you haven’t said much of anything at all since your little breakdown in the jungle. It’s only within the past day or so that any of you have really begun to talk to one another again, to converse like you might actually be people rather than just beleaguered harbingers of a still-fresh trauma.

You had to admit, it felt good… to be a person again. Or to pretend to be one at least. But it also felt – feels – strange. Alien. Wrong.

You shake your head harshly of all those too muddled thoughts – all the grief and pain and internal accusations still spilling from the seams of your barely stitched together mind – and you turn to Santi, noticing only now that his longwinded diatribe has finally come to an end. You clear your throat and ask, voice cracking at the edges, still hoarse from disuse, “You’re really gonna go find her?”

He smiles at you, all suave confidence and faux joy, as he gives a firm nod and states, “I’ll buy you a ticket too, if you want. Ever been to Australia?”

You shake your head and blow out a short snort of a chuckle. “No, I haven’t.”

He wiggles his brows at you suggestively and the chuckle turns into an actual laugh, light and airy and fuller than any empty reaction you’ve had over the past few days. “I’ve never had to travel for a threesome before, Garcia,” you reply with a sly expression of your own. “Not about to start now.”

“Threesomes?” Benny’s voice rings out, his newly tanned chest and shoulders shining in the morning sun as he appears half-dressed on the veranda. He saunters over, looking barely awake, and drops heavily down into a chair before reaching out and swiping at the carafe of coffee perched on the table. “Where are these threesomes? I might need the rest of the week to recover still, but then, I’m in.”

“You’re not invited,” Santi snarks. “Only beautiful women. Sorry.”

His bottom lip pops out in an overdone pout. “But I wanna be where the beautiful women are.”

You shake your head in a slow, amused arc. “Look around, Ben,” you mutter, at least two bikini-clad bodies capturing your attention from the beach below. “You’re already here.”

He leans back in his seat, groaning with the stretch. “Yeah, you’re right,” he says before bringing the newly filled mug of coffee to his lips. He takes a slow sip, smacks his lips together appreciatively, and breathes out, “This is my home now.”

You and Santiago both laugh, your chest burning slightly with the oddly familiar sensation. It feels good. To laugh. To shoot the shit over coffee and fruit, out on a lovely veranda overlooking the sea. It feels good. But, yet again, it feels so, so wrong.

Your face falls, the laughter fading away to nothing, a soft clearing of your throat signaling its end as your lips press once again into a tightly bound trap. And Santi sees. He notices the swift shutdown, discerns the somberness roll once more over you, like a sudden storm cloud blanketing you in shadow. He ticks his chin your way, forces a new smile – one that you know is just for show, just an attempt to garner one from you in return – and he asks, “What about you, bonita? You gonna stick around here and become some kind of beach bum?”

The smallest sigh falls from your lips, your gaze trailing back out over the beach, lighting on the rather stunning – likely incredibly rich – people below. “I don’t think I could compete with the women out here,” you say, voice almost wistful despite the rather self-deprecating nature of the words.

“Bullshit,” you hear from your left, the deep tenor pulling your attention immediately. Frankie now looms over the table, pouring himself a cup of coffee, a look of utter exhaustion painted across his freshly shaven face. He takes a long pull of the hot liquid then looks over at you, bedhead mixing in with the sun at his back to create ridiculous halo around him. “You’re gorgeous.”

You don’t even realize that the corners of your lips have begun to lift, that your eyes are momentarily shining with mirth instead of guilt and dread, until the muscles in your face pinch and burn, so unused to smiling that wide.

“Awww,” Benny mocks, leaning precariously back in his chair. “What a man, huh?” he directs at you, his thick guffaw getting promptly cut off by a gasp as Frankie grabs the back of his chair and gives it a violent thrust backwards. Long limbs flounder and fly into the air, coffee sloshing over the side of his mug as Ben panics and falls. But Frankie quickly rights him, setting all four on the floor, while shaking his head and sputtering out a laugh of his own. “Jerk,” Benny mutters, wiping away trickles of coffee from his arm.

Frankie ignores him thereafter, pulling a chair from the corner of the patio over and taking a seat next to you. He says nothing, doesn’t even look your way, his sleepy gaze trailing thoughtfully over the glistening sea, the brilliant blue waves sloshing up the mostly empty beach below.

He’s beautiful like this. Sleepy and calm and… introspective. You reach out and swipe the back of your index finger along the length of his face, trace slowly down his striking jaw and smile again at how natural it feels to touch him this way. To start the day with a view of his tousled hair and sleep-stained skin. To hear him pay you compliments with ease and candor even when he looks too tired to think.

His deep brown eyes shoot your way, gaze holding a hint of surprise, and you tug your hand back instantly. “You,” you sputter out, reeling a bit as you hear Santi giggle behind you. “You… shaved,” you say, aiming for a reasonable explanation as to why you just began petting his face out of the blue.

His cheeks take on a ruddy blush, insecure gaze dropping as he awkwardly clears his throat. “Yeah. Well… I needed it. I guess.”

You nod – a single, swift bounce of your head – and affirm, “I like it.”

“Yeah?” he asks, sounding every bit a shy little boy rather than the fierce warrior you’d come to know over the last couple of weeks.

“Yeah.” You give small shrug, grin turning crooked as you cock your head to the side. “I mean, I liked it before too.”

“Of course you did,” Santi teases. “Because you loooove him.”

You roll your eyes. “Just because I don’t want to run off to play sister-wife with you and my CI doesn’t mean I’m in love with someone else.” You give him a pointed, but utterly amused look. “It just means I don’t love you.”

His hand flies to the center of his chest, a pained expression rolling over him. “I’m hurt, bonita. Genuinely. Hurt.”

“Speaking of hurt,” Frankie interjects with a nervous-sounding throat clear. He cocks his head towards Ben, expression shifting to something grim. “How’s Will doing? He was looking pretty rough at dinner last night.”

Benny shrugs. “Yeah, well… you know how it can be once the adrenaline wears off. But he’s got some pain pills, some antibiotics… a nice cozy bed that he’s still laying all sprawled out in. He’s good.”

You huff out a sardonic laugh. “Says the brother who didn’t get gut shot.”

He narrows his eyes and gives you an almost dangerous stare, threatening but for the glint of mirth shining in his pale irises. “He wasn’t gut shot. He was… flank shot. More like a bad scratch. He’s just milking it.”

“Yeah, sure,” Santi laughs. “Sounds more like what you’d be doing in his position.”

Ben leans back in his chair once more – “Damn right, I would.” – and sends an almost salacious nod your way. “And I’d be asking you to nurse me back to health too.”

You roll your eyes, but before you can make any kind of remark back at him, Frankie slyly kicks out his leg, looping his foot around the tilted chair, and sending Ben sputtering to the floor. “Uh, oh,” he breathes out casually, leaning forward to lend his friend a hand. “Did you hurt yourself, buddy?” he asks as a disgruntled – and coffee-covered – Benny rises with a groan, righting his chair and dropping heavily back into it, all while glaring daggers at Frankie’s outstretched hand. “I’ll be your nurse.”

Santiago snorts out an indelicate laugh, sputtering a bit as he leans forward and lays his mostly empty mug atop the table. “You could do worse,” he tells Ben before turning your way and issuing out a playful wink. “I hear Fish gives a hell of a sponge bath.”

You simply shrug and take another sip of your coffee, offering no words to dispute.

000

The most relaxed morning you’ve had in… more time than you can recall rather quickly gets swept away by the more somber mission of splitting out your earnings. Somber, not for the task itself. No, if anything, sitting down with a banker – much like sitting down with a lawyer, accountant, or financial advisor – is little more than a gruelingly tedious affair. It’s somber – miserable even – because of what it all means. The money, the work you all put in just to get that money… the dream, the possibility that the money held when it was first discovered… all of it led to one excruciating outcome. Tom’s death.

It’s no surprise, honestly, that everyone signs their shares away, gives it all to Tom’s family, to his girls, the children whom you helped to move halfway down the path of becoming orphans.

You didn’t want that money anyway. It seems that no one did.

From there, you break out, goodbyes given in the street, some more final than others, Santiago heading off to the airport now, eager to get everything over and done with so he can head across the world to the beautiful, brave woman he hopes is waiting for him there.

But Will and Ben promise to meet up for drinks in a bit. Their flight out not leaving until much later tonight. Off to Mexico… a bit of a vacation before returning to the real world back at home. They asked this morning if you wanted to join them, as Will cursed at the computer he was purchasing tickets from like a disgruntled old man. But you could see in their faces that they didn’t really want you to follow. After all, what would you be but an ongoing reminder of these last horrible weeks?

Frankie had said nothing of his plans to you in the days past, and he says nothing now either as he turns and heads solemnly back to the hotel bar.

And you don’t ask. Not there in the street outside the bank. Not as those who remain gather for a farewell drink later that evening. Not even as you slip away just after, feigning a headache so you might let the group of friends enjoy each other’s company for a while longer… without your presence muddying the waters.

The truth is, you assumed all along that Frankie would leave tonight as well. That he’d head back home, or off on some adventure designed to ease him back into a sense of normalcy. That he’d toss his duffle over his shoulder and catch a cab to the airport and go back to his life before. Before he became party to an international incident. Before he gained and lost millions of dollars in a span of mere days. Before an old friend took a bullet to the head. Before you.

But the thought of actually hearing him say that he’s leaving – hearing him say, goodbye – is more than you’re able to bear right now. So you leave before he ever gets the chance.

You go down to the front desk of the hotel and pay out for the entire week, deciding to take a few days to figure out what comes next… for you.

You can’t very well go back to Colombia. You had given notice at the DEA the day you left for the States, the day you flew in to meet with Santiago’s friends. And home? Well, you hadn’t really had one of those in years now, not when you were always on the move, globetrotting and working every moment of the day, packing all your time with assignments and missions and ops.

The truth is, you’re tired. Tired of working. Tired of just flitting in and out of people’s lives, and having others merely flit in and out of yours. Tired of putting life on hold. You don’t know what exactly you’ll do now, nor what you want… but for the first time in a long time, you can honestly say that you want something.

You go for a long walk along the beach and let the sound of the crashing waves and the salty scent of the sea wash over you. You give yourself permission – for the first time ever maybe – to not think. You beg yourself not to think about anything but the feel of the sand beneath your toes and the full moon riding high in the sky, reflecting brilliantly in the wide open sea. You decide then and there that no planning nor plotting nor thinking will occur for the next several days at least.

Maybe it’ll come to you then, as you lounge on the beach or vegetate in front the TV in your room or walk the startlingly colorful streets. Maybe, if you keep yourself from forcing things, you’ll be able to figure out what that something is.

Maybe you’ll even find it waiting outside your door later tonight, wearing a gray-tinted Hawaiian shirt stretched tight across broad shoulders, an eager expression painted atop blushing cheeks. Maybe you’ll saunter up, unable to hide your wide grin, reach around him to unlock the door, ask simply, “Sticking around for a bit?”

Maybe you’ll feel the subtle heat of his breath at your neck, the gentle press of his lips on your ocean-salted skin, the brilliant trill that his words cause to spill down your spine as he whispers into you, his deep voice cleaving into your very soul, “Why would I leave? Estoy en el cielo.”

Maybe.

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