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poedameronloverx · 3 months

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Ride or Die (Santiago “Pope” Garcia x fem!reader): Chapter Two (of 11 - COMPLETED SERIES)

Series summary: Together, you and Santiago have been “soldiers” then “friends” then “lovers”; but can you ever figure out what comes next, especially when Santiago can’t (or won’t) stop running?

Series genre: a LOT of tasty angst, tasty smut, best friends to… lovers?

Warnings: see series warnings, here. Please note this series is 18+ / NSFW / MDNI. Minors or ageless blocks interacting will be blocked.

Series info: this is a COMPLETED SERIES. Posting schedule and series masterlist are here.

Author’s note: Thank you SO much for the response to Chapter One! And if you're still with it, I hope you enjoy chapter 2! It has been a LOOONNNNGGG time coming! 😆 This one is slightly shorter, with a bit of exposition to bridge between the OG instalment and the meat of our newly embarked upon continuation! The next chapters are where things really kick-off, but I do hope you enjoy this stoking of some tension, and, of course, finally seeing Santiago again - for the first time since the jarring conclusion to chapter one!!!!!!

Word count: 4.8k for this part

“It’s okay,” Frankie rumbles, looking at you levelly. “You can ask me about him.”

You sigh, squirming in place - on the rear porch steps of your sister’s home - as your game is finally unmasked. Your pretense dashed.

The hubbub of the lazy, Sunday BBQ is nothing but background to you now as Frankie zones in on your true wants, rendering you as an observer - rather than a participant - in the annual gathering you usually draw an abundance of joy from.

Not so today, despite your best efforts at going through the motions. At pretending like everything is fine.

Up to now, chatting idly with your bud in this safe little bubble, you’ve cycled through a gazillion conversation starters; each to emphasise just how interested you are in Frankie, and Whatever He Has Going On. Clearly though, you have failed to convince. Your friend simply knows you too well. Knows your weaknesses.

Your one true weakness. Santiago “Pope” Garcia.

You look at kind-eyed Frankie apologetically from beneath your lashes, sorry that your flimsy chat has failed to mask your disinterest in... um, whatever it was he was saying.

“Shit, I’m sorry, Cat.” Then, so help you, you ask the question you’ve actually been burning to ask all day. “How’s he doing, Frankie? Really?”

Confirming the shift in tone, Frankie sets his plate of food aside and nestles his bottle of beer on the corner of the lowest porch step. Now you’re having a conversation. The pilot tents his fingers together in his lap, giving your question the full merit it deserves. “Pope?”

Who else?

“He’s… fine,” Frankie nods, studying your face as he says the words. Noticing -no doubt- the way you chew on your lip as your gaze wanders, fixing on the man in question. As you watch him mingle comfortably, effortlessly, amongst the throng of people on the lawn. Making connections, as per usual.

Your stomach drops. An unease jostles in the pit of you. The niggle of regret.

You shouldn’t have invited the guys here today. Shouldn’t have agreed to have them be present at your family gathering. Shouldn’t have agreed to follow-up it up with a squad weekend at the beach house - no matter that it’s tradition. But, then again, who were you to disrupt the usual way of things? And, more so, who were you to pretend that you didn’t want to see him again? After all this time?

In truth, you had wanted nothing else but to see him again. That is, until you had laid eyes on him, and then, very quickly, you had pivoted. Wanted nothing more than to keep your distance.

Why?

Because by all accounts it’s true.

Santiago is fine.

Santiago certainly looks fine. He looks fine in all senses of the fucking word. He looks as though he’s thriving, in fact.

Your face falls at the implication: that he’s thriving without you.

With effort, you hum, schooling your expression into something neutral; however, Frankie’s already on to you. “Is that what you wanted to hear, chiquita?”

You turn your head towards your friend and exhale a small, pitiful laugh. Pondering Frankie’s question, you set your own plate and beer down too – a signal that shit’s getting real.

Is it?

Is that what you wanted to hear?

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I wanted to hear, Cat.” With a dejected sigh, you lean your head on Frankie’s shoulder, hooking your arm into the crook of his elbow. “Does that make me cruel? If I don’t wanna hear that he’s happy?”

Your buddy doesn’t answer rightaway, but he does rest a reassuring hand on your thigh in response, his plush bottom-lip protruding as he pouts – apparently mulling over whether or not to throw you a bone. “Okay. Look,” he begins - always a soft-touch for you - and you instantly perk-up just a little. “He had a rough spell when you left and-” Frankie huffs out air, shaking his head as though he might have gone too far in divulging already “-fuck, actually, you don’t wanna know.”

You head snaps up from Frankie’s shoulder as it begins to shake with mirth, your curiosity piqued.

“What?” you probe, as Frankie turns his head to look at you, a smile cracking his sharp features. Apparently, Frankie has a small part of him which is cruel too. “We stumbled upon his heartbreak playlist. And it was not pretty.”

“Come on now,” you protest, a little too defensively, your mouth suddenly dry. “I hardly broke the fucker’s heart.”

Frankie pumps his eyebrows. Shrugs his shoulders. Then, his bark-brown eyes mist over, just a little. “More likely than you think, chiquita.”

With that, your eyes flick right back to Santiago’s figure on the other side of the yard, as if trying to reconcile Frankie’s assertion with the reality you see before you. After all, Santiago “Pope” Garcia looks fine. In all senses of the word.

Right this second, for example, he’s engaged in a highly tactical water fight with your kid nephews. About to enter the killbox any moment, you wager, given that 5 and 7-year-olds don’t seem bound by those pesky rules of engagement. His cargo shorts are – naturally - far too tight, and he’s wearing his crisp blue shirt as though he forgot what buttons did half-way through getting dressed, the fabric split in a deep, plunging “V” across his tan chest.

Despite all that, however, the thing which captures your attention most, is the beaming, wide-open grin he has painted on his face.

He looks...

...Happy.

Genuinely happy. The bastard.

This is the first time he’s seen you since he stormed out of your apartment all those months ago. The first chance he’s had to make things right - and he hasn’t spoken a word to you all day. Despite being in your family’s yard. Eating your sister’s food. Playing with your goddamn nephews. You broke his heart, apparently. So Frankie tells you. And yet this fucker dares to looks happy.

So… Is that what you wanted?

For him to be happy?

Without you?

Or… is a small part of you cruel?

You’re not sure about the answer to that question, but you do know that your eyes turn mildly devilish as they flick back towards your buddy, your voice hushed and downright conspiratorial. All of a sudden, you’re not concerned with being the bigger person.

You decide you’ll willingly catch that bone Frankie is throwing. “Tell me more about this playlist, Francisco.”

You need this, you justify internally. You need something. Some sign that Santiago is hurting too.

You’ve needed this for months, in fact; but, goddamn - you especially need this before you and the squad spends a whole weekend together up at the beach house.

You need it badly.

Why?

Because you’re not fine.

Not fine at all.

Not fine without him.

This is your family's yard, and it’s your family’s party, and it’s the first time you’ve seen him since he stormed out of your apartment all those months ago… and you’re emphatically not happy about it. Have found that, despite what you had hoped for, your reunion hasn’t solved a damn thing. Hasn’t eased the knot in your chest. Hasn’t allowed you to feel any sense of resolution.

“Fuck.” Your eyes brim over with the realisation, wet and glassy, and a tight lump balls in your throat.

“Come on,” Frankie mutters - softly but urgently - as your eyes begin to swim with emotion. He nods up towards the interior of the house, and you are endlessly grateful when, with minimal spectacle, your buddy bundles you inside, his arm slung casually around your shoulder for comfort.

You’re not the retreating type. At all. You have always been comfortable running headlong into things that scare you. Even so, it is a marked relief when you do slink inside. A relief that you were able to save face. Keep your pain hidden. But, most of all, it is a relief that you no longer need to suffer Santiago’s abject joy.

It is a relief in the same way it is to retreat from the blazing sun, and you immediately find sanctuary in the cool, shaded interior of the house.

Still, given the tumult of emotions inspired by his general proximity today, you are less and less sure that you can handle this trip.

The only thing pushing you to go through with it, in fact, is the knowledge that there’s one thing harder than being close to Santiago… and that’s being apart from him.

Perhaps Frankie’s wrong. Perhaps you didn’t break Santiago’s heart when you left. But, one thing’s for sure. Leaving him had certainly broken yours.

Truth be told, even after all this time, you’ve barely begun to put yourself back together.

You’re in pieces; which - to be fair - is always how Santiago liked to see you, isn’t it?

A friend. A soldier. A lover.

That’s the only way you can stand to view him now. In mere fragments. In the shrapnel of stolen glances; because trying to see him all at once? That’s like trying to stare directly at the sun.

He is too bright for you and it burns. Even with all this distance.

***

You’re surrounded by laughter and chatter, yet you feel an unease. An unrest in the pit of you.

Will’s ballcap is tugged down over your eyes under the guise of staying warm - a flimsy excuse, considering the raging fire pit in the centre of you all, acting as the warm sun to your orbits of beer, passed amiably around from hand to hand via the cooler at Will’s side.

Naturally, the conversation has veered sharply towards the crude - it reliably does when you are and the boys are all together.

“For real, Pope. Since we’re, uh, sharing,” Tom interjects, already looking far too pleased with himself. “Do you ever play up the knee thing to… encourage women to go on top?” Tom’s question earns shocked titters from Will and Frankie and, despite yourself, a softly exhaled laugh from you.

“Why are you so obsessed with me?” Santiago asks Tom with an assured grin, and, upon being subject to the group’s attention, he leans forward in his camp chair. He drains the dregs of his beer and tosses the emptied bottle into the gathering pile in the sand, the label already peeled off by his nimble fingers.

Tom presses him for an answer, and you see Santiago’s pearly flash of teeth glinting in the firelight. “Play it up, buddy?” Santiago emits a deep, throaty chuckle which bobs in his corded neck. The sound is echoed by the other boys too, the threshold for laughter pleasantly lowered by the alcohol.

Their movements are growing increasingly pack-like - a little less measured and a little more instinctual. Less individual and more unified. Moving as a team even as they sit still, with their spread legs and dropped shoulders and dipped chins. Alert eyes glinting in the dark with each lick of flame. Their energy would intimidate you, you think, if you didn’t know them. If you didn’t feel safer here than anywhere else in the world.

Still wearing that grin, Santiago scoops his hand over his stubble, his finger and thumb tracing around his mouth. “It’s practically a pick-up strategy.” His voice is warm sand and it scrapes you. Leaves a mark.

Frankie titters off to Santiago’s side - a chaotic, beer-addled laugh. To his other side, Will grins too, his laughter striking a robust and deep note, even whilst shaking his head as though he’s somehow above it all. Together, their sounds form a cacophony you can feel deep in your chest - like the rumble of bass from a speaker, or the subdued roar of the ocean.

If they are a pack, you - for once - are at odds. You feel it now more than ever, and it jars you. You are hyper-conscious that no display of mirth falls from you; and, in fact, the corners of your mouth turn down.

Instead, you dwell on this roar - this rumble and hum under your skin. If you feel like the tide, like you are being swept up, Santiago is your shore. Everything about him draws you in, and you feel you could wash him away with the force of your need for him.

Regardless of that, you continue to do precisely what you’ve been doing all night. You try to bury everything. To subdue your feelings. To calm this frenzy deep in the pit of you. In this moment, thinking about Santiago pursuing people other than you - listening to the damn stories - you take that urge quite literally, digging your bare toes deeply and intently into the sand as though you could disappear wholly into it.

But; even that reminds you.

Everything reminds you.

Santiago.

You’ve thought of nothing else all night.

How could you?

And, you feel the lack of him.

The roughness of the sand against your smooth skin is a poor substitute for the rasp of his stubble. For the grit of his voice against your throat. The warmth of the curling, licking flame is a poor substitute for his body heat. His curling tongue. His fingers. The way you bury your feelings has nothing on how he buried himself in you.

You fall into memories, tacky and hot, tumbling, and yet Will’s voice rips you abruptly back to the present.

“How in the hell do you spin that one, man?” he asks Santiago with a genuine curiosity, his ice blue eyes dancing with amusement.

Santiago risks a sheepish glance at you then, as though sensitive that his prowess with women might offend you in some way; but your eyes simply glance off of his like a flung spark from the fire pit, desperate to turn towards the dark and rid yourself of any heat which he may ignite. Desperate not to linger on the way the shadows and the light pool across the harsh planes of his face. The way his dark eyes are flickering and alive, and entirely capable of burning.

And so, Santiago continues, relishing his moment. “Come on. It’s easy,” he breezes. He clears his throat, fully readying to inhabit his role. He shuffles in his chair and changes his demeanour, his body language, his voice. Shifting and contorting himself until he is layered with seduction. His frame even grows bigger, bolder, his legs spread. Chin raised and eyes hooded with a slow, sultry blink of those long lashes.

Even this performance of heat hurts you; burns. Burns brightly enough that you have to look away from him before your skin is singed by it. “Hermosa,” he rasps, voice pleasantly scuffed by beer and smoke, the sound so rough and gritty you swear you can feel it scrape your skin. Your core clenches around the full, deep, dark tones of him, as though they alone could fill you.

The fire throws out careless sparks like cracked whips, and, like them, you cling to a dying heat. This vestige of the way he spoke to you in the dead, dark night at one time, your bodies all salt-slick skin. “You’re right,” he purrs, and you see that his body has shifted - angled towards Tom.

You feel embarrassed. You feel alight, as though somehow, they could all find you out in this moment. Could sense the wet slick pooling between your legs. Smell it somehow. Like all of a sudden their eyes will converge on you and they will know - hear the flutter of your pulse in your throat. Sense the throb building in your core. Feel you barrelling from dull ache to desperation.

“About what?” Tom asks, playing along as Santiago sneaks a hand up his thigh.

Santiago’s smile is lopsided. Charming, but full of challenge. “Thinking that I’m a bad idea.” He’s hamming it up, for sure, but the syrup and grit in his voice is taking you right back there all the same. Right back to between those sheets, and a disobedient heat snakes down your back.

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

“Well,” Santiago offers with faux regret, voice husky, and you can’t help but lift your eyes back to him. Can’t possibly look anywhere else now. Can’t help but observe the smirk twitching his appealing mouth and the way his thick brow arcs up. “‘Cause my knees are shot from years in the military, so I’m afraid you’ll have to get on top and ride me senseless.”

God in heaven.

Looking at him was a mistake, even like this. Even as he feigns seducing Tom, of all people. There’s just something about the rough edge layered into his voice right now. Something about the firelight painting his sharply-angled face with shadow. The flickers causing his smouldering eyes to glint with an echo of that formidable, latent heat.

You feel this vestige of warmth in you ignite. Feel it begin to blaze and catch. You feel memories of him, his skin, his touch, amassing grain by grain. Ever so suddenly you are the shore now. Parched. A hot, baking expanse seeking its relieving tide.

God, you want him.

You feel your core shiver around the memory of him slipped into you, deep and dirty, teeth on your throat, and it’s almost too much to take.

You need him, even though you’re still so damn angry with him.

Or… no. No, that’s not it. Yes - you want him because of it.

You need to fuck the residual anger from beneath your skin, for it has festered there for months now. Months, and you need it to move. Need it to give. Need it slaked and sated and gone.

It’s not a healthy desire, you think, and you feel a little shame at that. You are grateful then - as Santiago effortlessly drags you back into the inescapable pit of him - that the boys’ laughter tears you abruptly from this impossible yearning. Gives you a lifeline. Reminds you where you are. How far you’ve come.

You got out. And that meant leaving him behind too, didn’t it?

“You’re such a fucking dog, man,” Will snickers.

The chair over, Frankie’s shoulders are shaking with laughter too, his head tipped up to the sky and his eyes disappeared with it. You wish that you could laugh like that. That you could feel light, but instead you feel heavy and sick.

“That works?” Tom asks incredulously, and you take another hasty swig of your beer, the froth hissing against your lips and a hoppy taste flooding your tongue. You briefly wish it was something stronger.

“Don’t go getting ideas, Tom,” Santiago says smugly, slapping his buddy emphatically on the thigh. “Works when I do it.”

Oh, you bet it does. You bet it works.

Tom throws Santiago a stink-eye then, before sitting slightly taller in his chair, his face contorting in a clear attempt to smoulder. “My knees are shot from years in the military...” Tom echoes, trying to inject a similar level of grit into his voice... and, the contrast? The failure? It is… an instant relief.

Tom’s attempt is laughable, in fact. And so, when your favourite pilot’s dense, throaty chuckle sounds out to your side once more – this time, you can’t help but crack a smile too. Indeed, the laughter which spills out of you is a welcome vent, and so you reach for it wholeheartedly.

There is an eruption of good-natured, teasing banter from the boys now - and Tom looks miffed that his attempt to tease Santiago has almost entirely backfired. Then, grasping for this welcome escape route a tad too eagerly, perhaps, you submit your own dig. “You might wanna run that script again. Give us a little less of that insurance infomercial vibe next time, buddy.”

Frankie can barely breathe from laughing now, his hand coming to clutch his belly, and it’s pleasantly infectious. The atmosphere is safe and cocooning and familiar, and for the first time tonight you almost forget. You almost forget the thing that you haven’t been able to forget for months. That Santi isn’t touching you, and that, God; you need him to.

But then, your relief is snatched from you all too suddenly. “Well sure,” Tom aims, his shot primed to land. “You would know how it goes, right? First hand? Did Pope use that line on you too, right before he and that guy from the bar practically double-dipped you?”

The group fucking brace.

You can feel it.

It’s the exact same energy as when you’ve all grabbed for purchase in the helo or the humvee, right before a collision. The world seeming to flow in slow motion, your stomach being tossed up in the air and rolling as you lurch and sink.

Most of the time, sure. You pride yourself for being able to take the boys’ banter on the chin. For having a thick skin. For being able to muster a scathing comeback, rolling off your tongue without a thought.

But this? This has you beat for a second. This has a sinkhole opening up in your middle.

You meet Will’s eyes for a split second in desperation, but he looks at you helplessly, and you know. You know you need to say something. You know you need to, before they witness -before he witnesses- you falling apart. Before you let your silence reveal that you’re not over Santiago. That this hang isn’t ‘just like old times’. Not like ‘before’. That maybe, it can never be how it was again.

Finally, something comes to you, and you grab for it; once again, a little too eagerly. “At least I got some, Tom. I doubt you could even seal the deal these days.” You push the words out and hope they sound light, even as you feel a tremor in your body. In your throat. Even as you feel Santiago’s eyes on you without looking. Can imagine them, dark and knowing, and worst of all… apologetic. Maybe even pitying. “Oh hey! Just like your ‘career’ in real estate!”

“Ohhhhh shiiittt,” is the prevailing sentiment from the group, hands flung up into the air as Tom realises he’s just been owned by your spectacular throwdown.

Good, you think. Good. You’re glad the asshole’s getting his comeuppance but, even so, your petty victory does little to fill the hole in your chest, your heart still hammering and your fingers still trembling subtly against the cool, wet neck of your beer.

To your surprise though, Tom doesn’t even bite back. Not this time, and that makes you feel even more annoyed, somehow. It makes you feel as though your anger is misdirected. As though Tom’s not the asshole here. As though he’s not the dude you’re fuming at after all.

Still, your comment served its purpose well enough, you think, as steady, safe banter erupts again. You are pleased that you avoided the full impact of this collision, brakes slammed on as you still teeter on the cliff edge; but your heart feels bruised and rattled in the roll cage of your chest all the same.

Mainly though, you are pleased that you are no longer the focus of everyone’s attention. However, your skin warms when you notice one man’s eyes remain on you, his gaze fixated and hooded and intense, and a shiver of heat dips down each notch of your spine.

You look away. You tug Will’s cap a little further down over your eyes and you wait. You wait for the topic to shift so that you can excuse yourself without the cause being quite so obvious. You wait, until you can’t take the heat from this fire a second longer. Then, and only then, you make your excuses and dip out, retreating into the empty, quiet shell of the house.

You pad into the kitchen, the cool interior immediately relieving against your hot skin, gooseflesh snaking down your arms and making your hairs stand on end. The dim light is certainly a respite from the searing brightness of the fire and the sting of the smoke in your eyes. But most of all, of course, it is relief from him.

Santiago.

It’s rough. Rougher than you expected. You simply can’t take this distance from him. You’d thought, before, that the miles between you - between here and Colombia - had been hard to reckon with. But this distance? The vanishingly small distance where he’s right here yet has never felt further out of your reach? That’s a thousand times harder. This petty distance – this rupture, this wound – hurts far more, because it feels far harder to heal. Far more festering than a clean break, and seeing him has already torn out every self-applied suture.

You don’t like that things seem to have been irrevocably changed. You don’t like that your two bodies - which used to be so in sync - are now so awkward around one another. Purposefully aloof, rather than tactile. Remaining so separate, rather than together.

It has been slowly amassing all day, the weight of this pain. Of this lack. And now, after feeling the absence of his touch so intensely - of that blessed togetherness- ironically, you finally need a moment alone.

You cross the room and fold yourself over the kitchen counter, hinging at the hips. You rest your head in your hands, laying your forearms flat along the cool, marbled surface.

For a brief moment, it is even a relief. You breathe deeply. Put him out of your head. But, after only one moment more you find yourself missing the pain. You’ve become fond of it, in a way. You haven’t been able to let go because, in truth, you’ve wanted to feel the continued burn of this loss - like a scar.

It is the only proof you have left that he touched you at all.

That you came close to having something with him. Within touching distance of it.

But now…

You sigh deeply. You hate this torment. You hate not knowing how to be around him. The way the familiar is recast as unfamiliar. Your certainty now uncertainty. Your home now a hotel.

You’ve spent the whole day so far keeping your distance. Talking only to the group, always some buffer of Tom or Will or Frankie in between you. Always leaving one seat between your bodies. Avoiding prolonged eye contact. Going out of your way to make sure the two of you were never left alone.

Being left alone with him is the last thing you want; and the first, of course.

And, as if on cue, a low whistle sounds from behind you. You know the sound without looking, and your body stiffens. “An ocean view and now this?” Santiago jokes cautiously as he approaches behind you, clearly faced with a perfect view of your ass as you fold over the counter. “Pretty sweet deal. You should get Tom in on this real estate action. He might actually sell something.”

Despite everything, all of it, you can’t help but laugh at that. You appreciate the dig at Tom a hell of a lot more than you should, actually.

“Listen. Are you… alright?” Santiago asks next, much more softly. You hate the way his voice prickles the hairs on the back of your neck; but also, you don’t hate it at all, of course.

You inhale and stand, pushing your torso up from the counter. You look up to the top of the cabinets, not blinking until the would-be tears have dried, and only then do you turn towards him.

Santiago.

Only then do you face your sun, praying that you will not be singed.

All day, you have had a buffer in between the two of you. Clouds, to dim his brightness. But now, it is just you and him, alone in the kitchen of the beach house.

This bland domesticity sure is a far cry from the field, yes. From your original shared domain. But, it also serves as an all too painful reminder of the last time you saw him. Of the last time his lips moved against yours. Of the last time, in that kitchen, that he’d had you. Taken you, bunched up naked against the fridge as he filled your slick heat with his fingers. As he kissed you and tongued you and claimed you back, as if he ever intended to keep you.

It is a reminder of the time he had told you he loved you, and with finality, you had both realised that it still might not be enough.

You turn towards him, finally, and you brace.

Brace like you’re about to collide.

Like there will be an impact when your eyes meet.

Your brace like you’re expecting hot tempers, hot feelings, hot words. Wounds splitting and salt being rubbed in.

Still, that’s not at all what you get.

Instead, Santiago’s eyes are as wet as your own. All of his boldness and bluster is gone, and he’s standing on the very perimeter of the room as though he is the one who dares to venture no further. As though you might burn him if he gets too close.

“I missed you,” he rasps, and despite the softness and the sincerity of the words, they feel like a rough struck match against your skin.

You try desperately. Try desperately to fling this offered spark away before it catches, but it is futile.

He missed you, and his admission already has you blazing for him.

He’s standing mere feet from you.

And, despite everything, all you can think about is closing this oh so petty distance.

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poedameronloverx · 4 months

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Christmas tree farm

A/N: After @reallyrallyauthor sent me this wonderful ask of corgi BB being caried around christmas trees (pictured below) I had to run and write this. Title of course comes from the Taylor Swift song with the same name.

Holiday prompts ⛄ 9. Evergreen tree

Pairing: Poe Dameron x reader

Modern!AU, corgi Beebee (kind of set in the same universe of this fall fic)

Word count: 980

Twinkling lights and the smell of fresh pines danced around your eyes on that cold december day. Your nose began to freeze the second you left the warmth of the car, but after looking around and feeling Poe’s hand find yours, you knew it wasn’t going to be that bad.

Just as it always goes on every road trip, Poe opens the door of the back seat and the usual ball of fur speeds out, snow flying around Beebee’s chubby body as he ran all around the lot packed with christmas trees. “He could at least help us find a tree.” Poe remarked as his arm settled around your shoulders, keeping the warmth close to your bodies.

“The tree he pees on is the one we take home.” Poe scoffed, pushing your hip with his.

Finding the perfect Christmas tree had become your tradition. The very first weekend of the month you would drive to the same lot, drink the same mulled wine, and begin your search for the perfect tree.

The two of you wandered through the rows of evergreen trees, the crisp winter air tingling your noses and filling your lungs. Beebee ran ahead, leaving a trail of paw prints in the snow, making sure not one tree was left without inspecting it with his nose.

Poe squeezed your hand, his breath visible in the chilly air. "You know, Beebee might be onto something with his method,"

“Told ya’, the one he pees on…” You chuckled, leaning into him.

“I know we always find the best tree but this time I want it to be special, bigger, fresher.” You looked up at him when he stopped talking, his eyes busy scanning the trees. The twinkling lights above shined warmly against his skin, letting you admire his profile in a silent appreciation, his head clearly going through a thousand thoughts as it always goes, even when it came to choosing a pine tree.

“And why is that?” You asked, even though you knew the answer; and he knew you knew, the way he turned to look at you told you so, with a soft smile and a raised eyebrow.

“Y’know…” All of a sudden he got shy, sliding down his arm from your shoulder to hold your hand instead - your left hand, the one that held the ring he gave you right on your fourth knuckle. Poe toyed with it, his mother’s ring had never looked so beautiful as it looked on you. “Years from now we are going to remember this year as the year. The year we got engaged, when we started the rest of our lives. I want our Christmas to be just as perfect as the rest of the year has been.”

“Of course is going to be perfect.” You stopped, stepping in front of him to hold his face with your gloved hands. “It’s the year we got engaged, after all.” Your twist on his reasoning made him chuckle, his hands pulling you even closer to him by your waist, letting his lips crash against yours. The cold air seemed to fade away, replaced by the warmth of Poe's embrace. As you broke the kiss, you couldn't help but smile at the realization that, with him, every moment felt special.

A distant bark broke you from your haze, and as you turn to find where it was coming from, yuou spotted Beebee standing proudly beside a tree, tail wagging, and a suspicious puddle of liquid right next to the trunk. The tree was gorgeous: tall, full of thick branches, and the most lovely smell coming from it. Poe bent down to ruffle the furry head, laughing. “Looks like we found the tree.” He confirmed. “You were right after all.”

“I’m always right, you should know that by now.” You winked, earning a quick peck from Poe before he disappeared to find someone who could help you pack up the tree.

Not long after it was all set, the tree was on the roof of your car and you had bought a few local snacks for the ride back in the small hut close by. It was there were you spotted Beebee, comfortably curled up in a ball right next to a heater. “No! Come on, Beebs!” Poe encouraged him, patting his leg to lure him out. “It’s time to go.”

“I don’t think he’s coming, love.” From behind his shoulder, you spot Beebee already falling asleep. “He’s cold, the poor guy.” You coo at him, his tail instantly wagging at the baby voice you save only for him. You don’t give it a second thought when you reach under him and carry him in your arms, his fluffy body cozily snuggling against your arms as you begin your walk back to your car.

"Looks like someone has found his cozy spot," Poe chuckled at Beebee's apparent protest against wanting to be back in the cold. “My cozy spot.”

You cradled Beebee in your arms, his fur warm against your gloves, and you couldn't help but share a tender glance with Poe. "Well, he deserves a little break, doesn't he?" As you made your way back to the car, Poe opened the door for you, and you gently placed Beebee on the back seat, ensuring he was comfortable. The small dog curled up, his eyes drooping as he nestled into a makeshift bed of blankets and coats.

Poe trapped you against the door and his body when he closed the door, a playful smile on his face as he kept closing the distance more and more. “You know, I am cold too.”

🎄❄️🚀🎄❄️🚀🎄❄️🚀🎄❄️🚀🎄❄️🚀🎄❄️🚀

“Oh, sweetheart.” You coo at Poe too, who’s eyes lit up a little bit too much alike to Beebee’s. You can’t help but kiss him, soft and sweet, reminding him what he already knows: “You’ll get all the warmth when we get home.”

"A Christmas we won't forget, isn't it?" Poe chuckled against your lips and kissed you again, deeper this time, wanting to remember that kiss forever.

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