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narcolini · 2 years

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when the crows come home, 2

read part one here or on ao3

angel reyes x gn!reader, part two of ?, 4235 words

a/n: i will b straying from canon just slightly in terms of angel’s back story but it will be worth it trust me <3 (kisses to tay for brainstorming with me) also SO excited to get more of this going and to add EZ into things ahh

taglist: @ashlingnarcos @cositapreciosa @drabbles-mc (let me know if you want to be added!)

Angel picks you up in a truck this time, one that must have been an impressive purchase before it had started to rust. It looks like it lives in the desert now, sand and dust sprayed up its wheel-arches, which, you guess, could very well be true. You’ve no idea what club work really consists of. It hasn’t come up in conversation yet.

‘He’s meeting us there,’ he says, once you’re on the move and belted into the seat beside him. ‘Think he wants to show off his ride.’

You snort. ‘Like I know anything about bikes.’

‘Feel free to tell him that.’ He nods in your direction. ‘Tell him it looks goofy as fuck, too.’

‘And sabotage my chances of friendship with one of the only two people I know here? No way.’

He laughs, pushing back into his seat, with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on his thigh. ‘You gotta give it time, biche, settle into it, y’know? You ain’t been back long enough to be lonely yet.’

‘Oh, you severely underestimate how soul crushing it is to break off an engagement,’ you retort, exaggerating enough for it to land as a joke. ‘I think I actually create loneliness right now. It flies off me like radiation or some shit.’

‘Right, right,’ he says, like it’s plausible, ‘like a, fucking, superman situation?’

‘Superman’s radioactive?’

‘Well,’ he’s smirking, hiding another laugh, ‘okay, no. But he’s got laser eyes, right?’

‘Right,’ you agree. Stupid talking stupid. ‘So I have lonely laser vision. You better drive fast, Angel, who knows when it’ll strike.’

-----

EZ, unchanged, is on time as he always was. He’s standing by his bike, parked in front of the bar they’ve chosen, when you and Angel pull up. You’ve never been here before, obviously. It was a laundromat last time you checked but it looks like a popular place, loud and full despite the fact it’s a weekday.

‘Holy shit,’ you beam, pulling him into an overzealous hug as soon as your feet hit the tarmac. He’s wide between your arms, all muscle and new height. ‘You filled out, Zee.’

Behind you, Angel scoffs. You can see his head shaking in the edge of your vision. He’s still more dramatic than any situation ever requires, but you aren’t discouraged by it. You put EZ’s face in your hands, feeling more familial than you expected too. It swings into your chest as you look at him, unrelenting and ungracious, but warm like someones chipped sparks into a fire pit and left it there.

‘Can you even fit through doors now?’ you ask, voice lifting along with your smile.

‘And why didn’t I get this sort of reaction?’ Angel complains.

You throw him a look, tutting, but he just blinks back at you, waiting for an answer.

EZ smirks over your shoulder at him. ‘Because you never work out, bro.’

‘Tsk. Shut up, man. I work out.'

‘I can’t believe how much you’ve…’ You sigh, letting your palms drop from EZ’s cheeks. ‘God, this makes me feel fucking old.’

He squeezes the back of your arms, his returning smile as genuine as your own. ‘It’s really good to see you,’ he says, ‘and you are really old.’

‘Ha-ha.’ You roll your eyes, but it doesn’t chase the grin away. You might keep that all night, you think, it’s dimpled itself into your face for good.

‘Yeah yeah, gangs back together.’ Angel’s arm drops over your shoulder, a wave of aftershave coming with it. A nice one, thank God, he knows how to pick them. ‘Can we go inside?’ he asks. ‘It’s fucking cold out here.'

EZ laughs, hands set in the pockets of his hoody. ‘It’s like seventy degrees, Angel.’

You lift your shoulder, bouncing Angel’s hand by your ear. ‘Maybe if you wore something with sleeves for once.’

‘How else is he gonna show you all the shitty tattoos he’s got?’ EZ quips.

‘See what I mean?’ Angel says to you, eyes shining in a way that betrays him. He’s enjoying this. ‘Way less fun.’

You scoff, pushing him off you and toward the building with both hands to his back. You cant agree, you're already having more fun than you’ve had in months. There was a Reyes shaped piece missing from your life, and now it’s back, snug, like it never left.

‘Get in there,’ you tell him, with EZ close behind, ‘you owe me like, a million drinks, tontín.’

-----

‘Okay, okay. So, what happened? Come on.’

You’re a few rounds in when EZ brings the focus of conversation back to you. You and Mick specifically, the one fucking thing you had hoped to avoid talking about, but, even you know that was wishful thinking. Curiosity can only be stalled for so long, and alcohol does nothing for patience. Or subtlety. The pair of them are staring back at you, waiting, like two cops putting you through processing. Questioning and questioning. All that’s missing is the cuffs.

‘I figured you and him were good for life,’ EZ adds, like that’s an easier statement to follow.

You sigh, shoulders sinking. You can’t pretend to be brave about it, your body gives up, reacting before you get the chance to. ‘Yeah, me too.’

You expect a quip from Angel, but he’s uncharacteristically quiet, and seemed to lose interest as soon as you’d given your answer. Now, he’s looking at his beer and pulling his phone from his pocket. The screen’s bright enough in the dim bar to cast a strip of blue-light across his face.

‘I dunno,’ you start again, mainly because of the look EZ is giving you: intent, understanding. Maybe because it’s easier when it’s only him paying attention. ‘I just left.’

His brows pinch together. ‘Why?’

You give a shrug. ‘You know when it just doesn’t work anymore? Like, we’d been together so long…It just felt like, I don’t know, we were there for the sake of it.’ You pause to take a sip of your drink and it hits the back of your throat like paint thinner. ‘People change,’ you say, swallowing again, ‘we aren’t the same as we were in high-school, you know?’

‘Yeah,’ Angel remarks, eyes flicking from his phone. ‘EZ knows all about that.’

His brother scoffs. ‘Shut up, man.’

‘Remember Emily?’ Angel asks, ignoring him to question you instead.

You try to picture a face but come up blank. ‘I don’t know that I do actually.’

‘It’s fine.’ EZ’s palm lifts, waving over the table. ‘We aren’t talking about it.’

‘Cept he didn’t know when to walk away,’ Angel snarks, pulling his beer to his lips. He locks eyes with EZ before drinking from it.

‘Don’t start, Angel.’

‘Yeah,’ you cut in, blunt and tactical, 'we’re talking about me remember?’ You force a laugh, attempting to take a hard turn away from whatever argument is looming between them. ‘This is the part where you guys are supposed to say, oh you’re better without him, you’ll get anyone you want.’

EZ takes the bait readily, replacing the glare he’d given Angel, with a polite smile in your direction. ‘You will,’ he says, nodding, ‘and you’re back where you’re meant to be now anyway.’

Angel sits sourly, spinning his beer by its neck.

You target him, ‘Yeah, wasn’t even home two weeks before you sniffed me out, Angel.’

His lip tweaks, just at the corner. ‘Saved your ass, more like,’ he corrects, gaze lifting. As soon as he meets yours, you see the tension slip, weakening despite his efforts to stay sulking.

‘Oh, mhmm, my hero.’ You nod, sarcastically enough to make EZ snort, before finishing the last of your drink. ‘Does the hero feel like getting another round?’ you ask afterwards.

Angel huffs, but stands all the same. You watch him leave, his hand the last to go as it pulls away from the back of his chair, gold ring on his pinky. He didn’t wear them when you were younger, but they suit him now. The assortment of polished metal across his knuckles makes you want to reach out and count them, or pluck them from his fingers and put them onto your own.

EZ clears his throat opposite. ‘Y’know, Pops sends his love.’

‘Really?’ You shift your eyes back to him. ‘That’s sweet. I should stop by the shop.’ You pause, swallowing the guilt that rides bile from your stomach into your throat. ‘I’m sorry about your mom, Ezekiel. I heard—’

‘Yeah.’ He sucks in a breath over his drink, a hollow note following after it. ‘Thanks.’

‘I would’ve been back for the funeral but.’ You cant think of an excuse. The truth is, you didn’t know until it had already passed, but somehow that doesn’t feel good enough. If you’d been home more, you’d have known sooner.

EZ shakes his head at your hesitation, a merciful, don’t worry about it, gesture. It’s a lifeline to your quickly sinking raft.

‘You and Angel seem close still,’ you say, just for something to say.

He laughs dryly and takes a sip. He’s been nursing the same beer, his second, for long enough to be a conscious decision he’s made. ‘We have our problems now and then.’

‘Eh,’ you shrug, ‘that’s brothers.’

‘Says the only child.’

‘Hey, rude,’ you kick his foot under the table, ‘I have you. That’s close enough.’

‘Yeah?’ His eyebrow cocks. ‘News to me.’

‘See this?’ You gesture between the two of you. ‘This is us having problems. Like siblings do.’

He laughs, setting you off, and then there’s that warmth again, swinging into your chest. It can stay there. You want it to stay there.

‘Hey, EZ.’ Angel arrives back at the table beside you, his thighs to the edge of it, his knuckles tapping against the wood briefly. ‘Yeah, we gotta go.’

‘What?’ You crane your neck to look at him. ‘Why?’

‘Bishop?’ EZ asks, sitting back in his seat. You don’t know why he’s asking; it’s obvious he knows already, it’s clear in the slack of the shoulders and the tip of his voice that he’s accepted having to cut the evening short. He’s as disappointed by it as you are.

Angel nods. ‘Yeah, something’s come up,’ he says, then, his chin drops, eyes settling on you. To his credit, he looks apologetic, embarrassed almost. His hand goes to your arm for a moment. ‘You good to get a cab?’

Blankly, you nod. The fire has burnt itself out. ‘Sure, don’t worry about it.’

He waits.

Right. He’s a gentleman now. ‘I’ll, yeah.’ You reach for your phone. ‘It shouldn’t take long.’

‘Thanks, biche.’

‘Yeah,’ EZ adds, ‘we’ll do this again. You owe me way more anecdotes.’

You shake your head, then shrug, thumb hovering over the apps to find what you need. ‘Course, any time,’ you say, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

There’d been a summer, five or six years ago, where you’d been caught by an unshakable nostalgia of everything you’d left behind. A need to come home and stay home, for a while, anyway. You went to your parents, you went to the Italian place you’d had every birthday at since you were ten. You walked through the streets of your childhood without an agenda, fro-yo in hand, music drumming from your headphones—the shit you liked as a teen, you remember that specifically—and it had felt good. Energising, like plugging yourself back into the mainframe.

Then you’d ended up at Felipe’s butcher shop. It wasn’t your intention but, well, there were only so many stores in town, and you could see him through the window from across the street. And their house had been empty when you’d knocked on the day before, which seemed odd against your recollection of it. There was always someone at the Reyes’ house. So, curiosity got the best of you, before any self restraint could.

The bell rang as you entered, cool air from the meat counter greeting you as you crossed the floor, away from the stale heat outside. It brushed against your shins as you stepped up to the glass.

‘Buenas dias, tío.’

He was wrapping an order on the counter, and hadn’t looked up until you’d addressed him.

Once he did, he smiled, more polite awkwardness than genuine warmth, and wiped his hands clean on the skirt of his apron. You remember expecting a grander welcome from him, but that was too much to ask for at the time. He gave exactly what he could manage given the circumstances.

‘Welcome back,’ he said, nodding. ‘Can I help you with anything?’

You’d asked for a pound of chicken breast and half a dozen sausages. Then, you’d asked for an explanation to the empty house, two streets over from yours.

It still makes you buckle to think about it. How selfish you felt as soon as he’d answered, how guilty you were for coming and going and peering so freely into his life. For stopping by on a whim and prying under the guise of small talk. If you could go back in time, you’d take your purchases and shut up, you’d take the mystery and wait for it to unfold another day.

He was kind to answer you. You could see it cost him to do so.

Marisol died, he said. EZ’s in prison. Angel is in Oakland.

He was a man standing alone, talking to you about being alone, and you had nothing to offer in return except, I’m sorry, how awful. Thank-you. I’ll let you know how the recipe comes out.

You didn’t visit him again, or any of your old jaunts, really. You always came back for Christmas, and your parents birthdays, but you didn’t hang around. You barely even left the house. Santo Padre had no pull once you knew it was empty of them.

Oakland? you remember thinking, fucking Oakland?

According to your dad, Angel had moved home the same summer. You’d missed him by a month.

Unsurprisingly, two guys in a motorcycle club are impossibly hard to wrangle into any normal social gatherings. You tried to arrange something with them twice, no, three times, and each time was cancelled by one brother, or the other, with as little warning as thirty minutes. When it came to the fourth attempt, you decided to give up, opting for a, let me know if you wanna do something, text instead.

The chance of getting the two of them together, outside of club shit, was becoming very obviously a rarity. In the weeks that followed, the only time an opportunity came up was when they invited you to the clubhouse, for some birthday party to a man you didn’t know.

Maybe you should have said yes. Maybe you were absolutely right to say no. Meeting their friends, before you even really felt like a friend of theirs yourself, felt like a very messy, very scary idea. To you, anyway. You were out of practice after so many years of arriving to events as part of a pair. Just yourself didn’t feel like enough yet. So, you stayed home, and you only regretted it for a few hours afterward. Next time, maybe. You had work in the morning after all.

You hadn’t given much thought into meeting up with either of them separately, until Angel asked you to hang out one Friday. Watch a movie or something, he said, your choice.

It felt like a much safer olive branch to tread.

When the Friday came around, you left the office to go straight to Angel’s—in your car, finally, it’s alive and kicking despite the odds—following the directions he’d given you. His place was exactly as you’d pictured it: unassuming from the outside, distinctly masculine and lived-in from the inside.

You don’t hate it. It feels familiar despite being completely new to you.

He’d been asleep, you think, waking just as you’d arrived, because his throat was catching with it when he welcomed you, and his hair was sticking up at the back, untamed. He showered while you browsed Netflix and when he came out, he was human again. Conversational.

‘Nah,’ he said, over your shoulder, ‘not that.’

‘You said I could pick?’

‘That was before I knew you had shit-awful taste.’ He scrubbed at his hair with a hand towel, shaking his head as you skipped from title to title.

‘Well,’ you huffed, ‘what do you want then?’

‘I don’t know. Not that.’

After much debate, or childlike arguing, you'd ended up going with the first choice. He promised to have an open mind about it.

Now, it’s paused on the opening credits and you’re in his kitchen, staring at the assortment of mugs he has on the drainer. Almost all of them are branded, clearly designed by companies to be stolen, or gifted, and used as subliminal advertisements with every sip that you take. There’s so many out, that he must get a new one every time and never put them back afterwards. You don’t know if it’s endearing, or dangerously lazy.

‘Pick one,’ Angel says, arriving beside you. ‘I don’t have any glasses.’

Of course he doesn’t.

You hum while you decide, then point to a mustard yellow one, with a hen sitting in a pinstripe carton on the side of it. It’s from the chicken place not far from here, you recognise the logo.

‘Good choice.’ He takes the chicken mug and a grey one that says something about banking, then steps around you, bare feet tracking back toward the fridge.

The microwave pings, finishing its run. You come to life with the noise, remembering your assigned task, and reach to get the popcorn out. You bounce it, steaming, across the counter in front of you. It burns your fingers as you open it over the bowl you’ve selected, but God, it smells good. You haven’t eaten anything since lunch. This won’t last even ten minutes with you.

‘Beer?’ Angel asks.

You find him over your shoulder. ‘Is that all you’ve got?’

He leans into the fridge, forearm resting on the edge of the open door. The longest strands of his hair flop over his forehead, into his face. For a quick second, he looks eighteen again. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘unless you want some OJ.’

You sigh, but accept your fate. ‘Beer it is then.’ The last of the popcorn tumbles into the bowl with a rigorous shake of the packet. ‘You really need to sort out your diet, tontín. Ever heard of a grocery store?’

‘Yeah.’ The fridge shuts. ‘It’s where they sell beer and OJ.’

You go to scoff but it comes out as a laugh instead. ‘Man, I hate you.’

‘That’s not even a little bit true.'

You follow him into the other room, smiling, bowl in hand. Even after his shower, that chunk of hair is sticking directly up from his crown still. It really is uncontrollable without the help of gel, or grease, or whatever it is he usually drags through it. But you prefer this, you think. It makes it seem like he isn’t trying to impress you, or convince you he’s anyone but himself. He’s wearing a black a-tank and jeans, a uniform that has survived every decade of his life, and it’s all pairing together to make you relax more than you ever would at one of their clubhouse parties. It’s just you and Angel, after all. That has happened a thousand times before.

‘You really have got a lot of tattoos since I last saw you,’ you comment, still walking behind him. You’re looking at his arms, at the edge of the crown printed onto his bicep, and at his back, at the slim hints of ink that you can see there.

‘You like em?’ He pauses to let you past him once you’re in front of the TV.

‘Some of them.’ You shuffle by, behind the coffee table, before collapsing into the couch.

‘Wow.’ The cushions sink together as he sits beside you. ‘I see you’re as uninspired as EZ.’

‘Uninspired?’ you repeat, feeling a disbelieving laugh bury itself in your voice.

‘Yeah, no fucking eye for art.’

It wins, and you laugh, loud. ‘Right, cause you’re the Mexican Monet?’

Angel frowns. ‘The fucks a monnay?'

You sit back further, slouching, with popcorn paused mid-air, between your fingers and your lips. ‘Oh, I'm so fucking glad you haven’t changed, Angel.’ You smile at him, like you’re drunk, then toss the popcorn into your mouth.

‘Is that an insult? Why does that feel like an insult?’

You consider firing something back at him; a jibe about him being a six foot baby tiptoes on your tongue, but you decide against it. It can’t be like that all the time. ‘It’s not,' you say instead, ‘it’s a compliment. A big one.’

You watch him set the drinks on the table and grab the remote. ‘Wow, can I record this shit? Evidence that you can be nice to me?’

‘I’m being serious.’ You roll your eyes. ‘Don’t make it difficult.’

He looks back at you, elbows on his knees, TV controls hanging from his hold between them. His eyes are soft in a way you haven’t seen before. ‘I’m really glad you’re back, biche.’

‘Me too.’ You wish you weren’t holding a bowl of popcorn to your chest, because this very quickly feels like a conversation you’ve both been waiting to have, and the popcorn derails any sort of fucking sincerity with it. But, you go on regardless. ‘I don’t think I’d last here if we didn’t get back in touch, probably would do something impulsive, like buy a ticket to France or some shit.’

He recoils. ‘France?’

‘Yeah. Fresh bread and vineyards and stripes, y’know.’

‘You want that?’

‘No. You…’ You shake your head, France is beside the point. ‘I just mean, it wouldn’t be home if you weren’t here. Or if you were different.’ You look past him to the frozen movie screen. ‘Didn’t realise how much I’ve missed it all.’

After a pause, a quick movement catches your eye, drawing you back to him. He’s brought his phone from his pocket and points it in your direction. ‘Go on,’ he goads, ‘say that again.’

‘Oh, you asshole.’ You lunge for him, and he doesn’t put up a fight with it, letting you rip the phone from his grip with a laugh. The screen is black, locked still.

‘I was joking,’ he says. ‘C’mon. I’m sorry. You know I missed you.’ He nods, like he’s agreeing with himself. ‘Got a feeling my life’s gonna be a hell of a lot better now you’re back in it.’

‘Well.’ You chase the warmth from your cheeks. ‘I’m glad.’

He’s looking at you softly again, dark eyes under dark brows, and inviting in a way that makes you nervous. In a way you’ve not felt since you were twelve and finding out what crushes were.

The phone lights up in your hand, a text from someone called Gilly, but when you look, that’s not what catches your eye. Instead, it’s the lock-screen.

Angels gaze drops to it too.

‘You…’ The words fall away from you. Where do you even begin with something like that?

You stare at the baby like you might’ve mistaken it for something it’s not, but half a minute passes, and it’s still a fucking baby.

If it’s his, it isn’t living here. There’s not enough infant clutter about for that to be a possibility.

‘Don’t ask,’ he says. ‘Please. I know it’s fucked up to expect you to…’ He forces a sharp breath through his nose. ‘Just, not yet, I can’t—’

‘Okay,’ you interrupt, attempting to sound light about it. You click the button that locks the phone, black screen pulling over baby-blue, and offer him a sorry smile. You have enough baggage of your own to know when to leave things buried.

‘That’s it?’ His head shakes. ‘Just like that?’

You sigh. Another version of you might’ve demanded answers from him now, desperate and hungry for it. Another you, wouldn’t be satisfied with question marks. This you, however, is trying to be better than that.

‘I’m not here to make you uncomfortable, Angel. I’m here to watch a movie.’ You toss the phone into his lap, lightly, and sink back into the couch. ‘Come on. It’d be nice to be home at some point before dawn.’

He doesn’t move. ‘You’re really okay with that?’

You nod. He waits for you to say something, but nothing from the rabble of answers in your head feels entirely right, so you just hum a yes and push a handful of popcorn into your mouth.

The stiff scrunch of his shoulders goes loose. ‘Shit,’ he says, ‘okay.’

He presses play on the remote, then slouches into the cushion behind him, shoulder to shoulder with you. For a second, he looks uncomfortable, like he might readjust, or move somewhere else entirely; then, he exhales into it, relaxing fully, and his hand goes into the popcorn bowl. He scoops a portion much larger than he can manage, stray kernels throwing themselves onto your jeans as he lifts it to his mouth.

‘This better be good,’ he mumbles through chewing, ‘I got high hopes, biche.’

‘Oh, it’s good,’ you promise. ‘Life changing even.’

>>>>> part three

#angel reyes x you #angel reyes x reader #angel reyes #mayans mc fanfic #mayans mc #COLLAPSES at this gif honestly #osito #anyway enjoy!!! pls let me know what you think :3

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