Not Qualified For This: Back in the Saddle
Title: Not Qualified For This: Back in the Saddle
Pairing: implied Javi/Wife/You/Reader (“bonita”) but really mostly Dad!Javi
Word Count: 4100
Rating: Teen?
Warnings: drugs?
A/N: I have been working on this "time with his son not Petey" for TWO YEARS. I am so sorry.
Welcome to “Not Qualified For This” a one-shot series where you can read them by themselves or all together. One the masterlist they are presented in chronological order. They can be read as a sequel to “Paperwork” my one-shot series set during the show.
Javier Masterlist – Author Masterlist – Tip Jar
Javier Peña was stuck out of work. There was an enforced furlough and he was sort of hoping he would be exempt because it was coming at a time where he would normally ask for overtime to avoid the house.
You were having none of his scared rabbit twitches and glances to the door.
"You need to handle this Javi." You were standing with your feet shoulder width apart like there was potentially a fight about to break loose and you'd need balance.
Truth was, you weren't the one in need of balance.
"Come on boñita–"
"Don't think sweet talking me will change a thing," you cocked an eyebrow at him, "you don't have work, he's suspended from school, and you have to fix this."
He threw his hands up in the air, "So you think it's my fault?"
You rolled up your sleeves, slowly, to make his own words echo in his ears, and then crossed them over your chest with a clicking of your tongue hanging over every motion, "Well I don't pretend to be a genius, but when the teenaged son of a DEA officer is caught smoking pot at school and we barely convince them not to expel him I do see a slight connection there. Yes. I might even say a correlation."
Javier pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long slow breath, "I'm taking suggestions."
"I bet you are but, sweetheart, you are on your own."
#
It was hot, he hated being hot, he was always in some damn sunny, hot, sweltering place and he sometimes fantasized about retiring to Wisconsin.
His son wasn’t helping his mood.
“Do you need a leg up or–”
“No, I have it.” The voice was curt and Javier had to remind himself that smacking a kid wasn’t acceptable anymore. He’d have gotten a glove across the face for using that tone with his pop.
“Alright, well, don’t get thrown.” Javi shrugged and patted his shirt for cigarettes. He was still smoking but he’d made a bargain with a very stern Petey to stop smoking the same amount. At first he went from a pack a day to four a week. Then three. Then his wife had scoffed at the cost and he was suddenly down to one a week. That was who knows how long ago, now he was starting to get that back of the throat cough and Petey had glared at him and said “One a month.”
He loved that girl but she was scary sometimes, and he was at least hoping that the rumblings of law school were going to go somewhere.
“What are we doing?”
Bonding. Javi chewed on his mustache. Jorgi was trying to grow one but it was thin, sparse little hairs poking out, and he wouldn’t get to chewing it for a time. Jorgi still had his baby fat but he was straining at the edges, desperate to outgrow it, outpace it, “Fixing fences.”
“I don’t wanna.” Jorgi whined.
“Well tough shit, you’re suspended so you ain’t got anything else going on.”
He mentally cringed: that was not the best way to handle it and he knew it.
It made Jorgi stiffen, “That wasn’t my fault.”
Javi put a hand over his mouth, “Let’s just get packed up to go handle this, and worry about all that later? We gotta fix this up for pop.”
Pop was something that could compel Jorgi– he loved his grandfather and it was apparent that his grandfather’s health made keeping up the farm functionally impossible. Javi was here as often as he could be and he was sending the kids. Once Petey realized what the situation is she made a rotation of her friends in high school and college, and as much as Javi hated to admit it that Trent schmuck was pulling more than half his weight. Javi gestured to the horse, “We need them today, we’re going where the truck gets stuck. You got your rope and your knife?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright…where’s the cooler?”
“I don’t think I have room for it.”
That made Javi smirk. He’d complained about a crowded saddle as a kid too and his father had scoffed. Used to have four inches of a mule to sit on that didn’t have other shit on it, you don’t know what crowded is.
Javi wiped his brow, “It’s ok, I know how to do it.”
Javi felt narrating what he was doing was going to go over better than most other things he’d say, “So it’s just balance and tying it on so the horse doesn’t get fussy, they either want equal weight on both sides or something on the back but nothing that jostles their ass, they’re sensitive like that. Now since we got the tool chest I can do a saddlebag knot and it’ll just hang on either side.”
“Cool.” Jorgi looked at his horse’s mane and then at his cuticles, “What’s for lunch?”
“We haven’t even started yet, kid. Lunch is a long way away.”
“Fine.”
The ride out to his pop’s marshiest south pasture was quiet and awkward with Jorgi pouting and looking put out while Javi kept trying to figure which way would break through the best.
Goddamn I question criminals for a living, this shouldn’t be hard.
But it was.
While he certainly cared about some of his sources and while he had decency, ultimately when it came to questioning people it was usually no holds barred. He would make them cry, make them scream, wheedle them until they popped, or flat-out insult them all to get the confession. His bosses used to get real nervous around his tactics as some of them blurred the lines of acceptable, but now he was the boss and he had to do it less. It was on him to worry if someone else was too blurry with their lines, but he often wasn’t the one in the room these days. When he was? It was to show the kids how it was done. Someone had tried to strong-arm someone that needed their ego stroked or someone had played good cop too sweetly and was being taken for a ride, and Javi had to come in and course correct.
Hell’s the answer here?
Petey was getting into the full swing of college and even though she hadn’t left Texas she wasn’t home as much. Javi ached over that in a way he had never expected and there was a different sort of pressure with Jorgi. Petey was naturally good at school, Jorgi was alright. Petey ran hot and cold with trouble but she had really firm morals and Jorgi sort of placidly plodded along.
When they got there the fence was wrecked.
A tree was on it and Javi sighed, taking the toolbox and lunch cooler down and leading the horse to a tree, “Go on girl.”
Jorgi watched his dad and copied, “Why are we letting them loose? Why not tie them?”
“The noise of the chainsaw will scare them, if we tie them they could get hurt. They won’t go far and they’ll come back.” He shrugged, “Horses are too curious, they’ll want to see what’s happening as soon as they feel the big scary noises are gone.”
“Chainsaw?”
“Hope you didn’t think we were cutting that shit up by hand.” Javi pointed to the tree and Jorgi turned and really saw what was in front of them.
“Holy shit that’s a big tree.”
“Yup.” Javi opened the box, “Now, let’s talk about chainsaws.”
The chainsaws excited little more enthusiasm from Jorgi than the lunchbox or the knots or any part of the day so far, but at least they were noisy enough that both of them could ignore talking for a while. Still, a tree only had so many branches. The heat ticked up, the minutes accumulated, and the sweat ran down their backs but the conversation remained crippled.
“Come on, we gotta haul some just a bit away from the fence.”
“Why?”
“You wanna balance on them to fix barbed wire then be my guest but I failed trapeze arts in the academy…now, on my count.”
They managed to lift it and while it felt like they had it five feet in the air they only managed to get it about three inches off the ground. Then they managed to get it just clear of the fence before trying to count out dropping it and Jorgi dropped it before Javi, “Jesus Christ! Liable to throw my back out!”
“Sorry.” Jorgi looked down.
“I just….what’s up with you recently?” Javi threw his hands up, “Sitting over there pouting, not saying a goddamn word, you get caught red-handed at school, and you’re suspended and you barely say two fucking words to me…”
Jorgi looked up, “What do you want?”
“I dunno, Jorgi, insight. Yelling. I’ll take obscenities. That or don’t drop a fucking tree on me, Jesus, I know I’m not father of the year but I’m not the wicked witch of the west either.”
“That was a house.”
“At least the boy speaks!” Javi patted himself down for cigarettes. When he found them he held out the pack to his son.
“What are you–?”
“You’re smoking pot, I like to think this is slightly better. Legal, at least.” Javi kept the pack out and Jorgi took a cigarette from him, “Hardly be couth of me to pretend I think it’s horrible when I do it, you kids see that, I’m not trying to be a hypocrite.”
He lit Jorgi’s cigarette first and then got his own up. He noticed that Jorgi’s hands were shaking and as he brought the cigarette up to his lips he didn’t seem casual or practiced. On his first inhale he coughed, choking on it, and Javier cocked his head.
“What?” He expertly enunciated through his own cigarette.
Jorgi blushed as much as he could and tossed the lit cigarette into the river, stalking away from his dad and slumping against the broken fence.
Javier had that feeling tugging on his stomach like a dad moment was coming. It was something like anxiety and instinctively he looked around for another adult in the room.
He had never felt qualified for this, never felt he had the right advice or any wisdom worth trading to a kid. Often he felt his kids were best with less of him, but they kept coming back for more as if he was being stingy and he didn’t like feeling cheap or insufficient so he kept doling more of himself out.
But what was the answer here?
He walked over and sat down, though with less grace than the teenager. His back was halfway fucked, his knees killed him, and he was fatter these days so none of this was as smooth as he would’ve liked.
“Do you wanna talk?”
“No. I wanna fix the fucking fence.” Jorgi leapt up just to be away from Javi but whether or not Javi wanted to chase after him the older man was down for the count. He’d need a few minutes to work up to everything and at any rate Jorgi only went a few feet away, looked at the broken and bent pieces of the fence and started trying to put them back where they went. He wasn’t doing a great job, but he wasn’t doing terribly either. Javi just watched. He thought maybe he’d get something from observing so he sat in his discomfort, smoking his cigarette, watching a boy who rarely did this sort of work try to reason out how fences were made. For a long while the only sounds were Jorgi huffing and puffing and cursing at the various pieces of wood and wire and Javier just kept watching.
After maybe twenty minutes, when Javier could barely feel his feet, he pulled himself up, began stretching, and walked over to the horses to dig around the picnic lunch.
“Are you gonna help me or what?” Jorgi finally sniped at him.
“Depends…you gonna ask for help or just keep bashing at it like that?” Javier popped a grape into his mouth and shrugged, “I can do this all day.”
Jorgi took a broken shard that was about three feet long and tossed it like a javelin into the bushes. Javi watched and said, “Decent form. Track still a thing you guys can do?”
“I don’t wanna do track. I don’t…” Jorgi suddenly put his head back and screamed, “I don’t wanna be compared to Petey or have to listen to stories about you or …. For fuck’s sake, it wasn’t my pot. I was just hanging with Landon and Gabe, I didn’t do it, but Landon’s got two strikes and as soon as Bernhower opened the door Landon shoved it at me and I took it because I don’t have any problems. I didn’t think they’d expel me.”
“They didn’t, only because your mother is something of a force and I used to play cards with the Vice Principal.” Javier held out the bag of grapes, “Why take the fall for him? It’s an illegal drug, Jorg, you had to think they’d fucking care.”
“I dunno, Landon hangs out with me a lot and he plays baseball with me. I like baseball.”
“Never saw you with a glove at home.”
“I dunno, started up with him because he likes it but he never gets on the teams because of his other problems. He’s good though. He says I’m good, I dunno. I can’t figure.”
“Why not try for that team?”
“He can’t come.” Jorgi shrugged.
Javier took a moment, “He a good friend?”
“Not going to tell me he’s a loser because of his shit?”
“I met a lot of losers and plenty of people with shit and a lot of people that do drugs. Weird perspective on this is that there are plenty of good people in bad situations. I’m not actually inclined to think they’re all damned at the start.”
Jorgi straightened up, “He’s not a bad guy, he’s a good guy, and people are shit to him and he’s my friend.”
“So you helped him?”
“Yeah but…people just assume things now.” Jorgi kicked the fence, “Even if I wanted to try out for the team, I couldn’t.”
Javi could sense when conversations were veering to new territory, “Is that what you want?”
“I mean….thought about it. But they won’t let him on at all and now they won’t let me on either. Coach is a real shiny boys only kind of deal. No bad eggs.”
Javi snorted, “They make teenaged boys that never did a stupid thing?”
Jorgi calmed, “Landon doesn’t have a lot, at home. He uses the drugs, yeah, because he sells a lot –”
Jorgi froze, “Not a lot—”
“I’m off duty.” Javi showed his empty hands.
“He…he pays the bills. His dad’s not around. It’s how he keeps things ok. And I think he uses because he’s…” Jorgi struggled for the words, “Not sad but…”
“Something.” Javi held up his cigarette as an example, “I can get coping with chemicals. I also have met a lot of people who paid their bills with drug money. I’ve let plenty go. Petty things like this kid getting a couple hundred together to keep the lights on aren’t my concern, I’m not trying to sound like a big wig or something but I’m interested in the guys pulling hundreds of thousands. This kid seems harmless. Sad. Bad situation, which, truth be told can always lead to harmful but I don’t think he sounds bad. Why don’t you bring him around?”
“You’re Javier Peña.” Jorgi made a motion with his hand, “You bust dealers.”
“Listen I mean it, bad situations breed harm. Just look at it– he needed someone to take the heat off of him and then boom you nearly get kicked outta school. What would’ve happened to you if you had any other parents?”
“So I should let him get kicked out when he doesn’t have anywhere else to go?”
“I didn’t say that–”
“What’s the answer?!” Jorgi screamed the last part– not even at Javier, just at the air, because he had never really encountered this before.
Javier crossed over to him and put a hand on his shoulder, “I never said any of this was easy. In fact it’s the fucking worst. I have arrested people that shouldn’t have ever gotten in trouble and people who should burn in hell twice over have walked or turned for the state and it’s sometimes a load of shit. I ever tell you about the Mayor here when I was a rookie?”
“What?”
“The mayor. Oh well, Pepe Martin. Here’s the thing– this guy was mayor of Laredo since the beginning of time. Crazy long time. Then he’s found guilty of mail fraud. Should’ve not only lost the seat but gone to jail. Craziest thing was he schmoozed his way into doing his sentence on the weekends. On the weekends. I had to, as a young officer, prep his weekend cell. He had a private cell! For his weekend trips to jail! Insanity. Drove me up a fucking wall. I get mail fraud and its a federal prison for the duration, weekend or no. It was the first time I got my heart broken by the system. Really broken. I used to get good and pissed about it, dreamed about getting to punch this guy in the face and that’s just….I mean I was twenty years younger than him, what was it really going to do to anything to hit an old man? But still. I wanted to.”
Jorgi was quiet, “What’d you do?”
“Learned. Learned sometimes it works like that and if I don’t like it than it’s on me to change things, somehow. Do it different. And it’s just shit out there, Jorgi. You know we did our best to keep you stable and away from the hard stuff, but it’s not an easy life out there for most people. Your friend? I bet he tells you what it’s like and you see that and it gets you feeling bad– like why don’t you have it rough too? Like you feel guilty because he’s suffering and you’re not. Then he’s doing these bad things and it gets confusing, like is it bad if bad things made him?” Javier made a circling motion by his temple, “And that thought’ll drive you crazy, kid. It will. Because there’s not a good answer. It’s all case by case.”
“You…you were real mad?”
“You’re mother had kittens, I only saw her like that the time Petey got arrested.”
Jorgi smirked, “I remember that…I broke my arm. Mom was nice to me.”
“Well you broke your arm. Petey on the other hand nearly got charges pressed.” Javier shrugged, “And she was somehow in the right. She’s like Teflon, your sister, nothing ever sticks.”
“I know.” Jorgi groaned, “It’s a nightmare…I just don’t know how I will ever…ever figure that out. Ever figure how to get around it.”
“Get around what?”
“Petey survived being your daughter around here because she’s Petey…I just don’t think I’m special enough to make it out.”
Javier stilled, “Jorgi you don’t….that’s not a thing. You are always in such a good mood. As a little kid you were always just happy go lucky and nothing ever bothered—”
“Well I don’t know what to tell you…some time it changed, and I’m not.” Jorgi pulled away from his dad, “And now? Now I’m labeled like this and I just don’t see a way…I don’t know how I’ll ever get around the gossip.”
“Small town gossip is a bitch.” Javier agreed.
“How did you outrun it?”
“I left.” Javier said it and realized something in the same breath, though he didn’t say it. Instead he thought about his furlough and whether or not they’d spent the money from the tax return fully or not. He couldn’t remember. Had they discussed doing the driveway?
Well the driveway could wait.
“I can’t fix this fence.” Jorgi said lamely, as the silence drew on and he figured his dad was mad.
“Not alone you can’t, kid. Let me help.”
_________________________________________________________________________
You came into the room with a letter and waved it, “Mail call!”
“Jorgi?”
“Yup!” You were tearing into it, “I’m still mad at you for this, but I also love getting mail from them. One in college, one in—are we calling it military school?”
“It’s private.” Javier shrugged, “Whatever the fuck else…it’s over an hour away.”
“I remember. I sobbed the whole way home.”
Had you ever. Both your babies were out of the house and you’d thought that you had another little sliver of time with Jorgi.
“How’s he settling?” Javier asked as you poured over the letter and reported.
“Likes the room…food is bad, they do chili wrong he says,” You kept scanning, “Landon’s down the hall, they aren’t together, that’s policy, but they see each other.”
“Good, that’s good.”
“Coach had them down for drills already…I cannot believe you went and made him cold audition.”
“I don’t think they call it that, hon. Plus it’s not like Murph didn’t warn the guy, we just had to make it seem very happenstance. Else Jorg’d get all in his own head.”
“You are clever sometimes.” You looked up from the letter to him.
You had sent him away with Jorgi by force, but they’d returned home quieter– it’s always how it was when they were avoiding one another. You hadn’t expected him to present you with this option– a private boarding school, a baseball team to try for, and two tuitions.
You didn’t want to let that Landon kid in until Javier had laid it all out for you and you remembered the difference between field agents and secretaries– even very good secretaries. They were names on paper to you. Incident reports, reimbursement sheets, visa applications. They were lines. Javier shook their hands and talked to them and it was all far different for him. He had helped people cross borders, he had watched them get shot. There was something in that which sanctified his sixth sense about people and situations– he was allowed to tell you it was fine without you second guessing it.
You had to admit that these early few days already felt good.
Maybe it would go somewhere, maybe it would just be a nice end to high school, but Jorgi looked lighter, like his old self.
“They’ll kick you out of there for drugs.” Javier had warned both boys, “And there’s not a good goddamn thing I can do about it.”
“Yes’sir.” Landon nodded.
“I know, dad.” Jorgi agreed.
You kissed Javier’s head, “You got this one right, huh?”
“I guess I did…you know, I don’t believe the kids are home or liable to come in and interrupt.” He pulled you into his lap, “And this is the sort of thing I could get used to again.”
You happily let him twist you onto a couch that couldn’t be repaired or replaced while private school payments for two were happening, but that part faded into your brain as Javier popped the buttons on your blouse.
___________________________________________________________________
“You got the tickets?”
“Calm down, Javi, it’s the minors. There’s no line. There’s plenty of seats. The tickets are $5.”
“Honey, come on, we gotta go– we can’t miss the game—”
Javier pulled into the driveway of a farm that had once belonged to his father. He had almost sold it, but something had come up to change his mind. He laid on the horn, “JORGI! VAMOS!”
Jorgi came out of the house that he had spent the summer repainting. He wasn’t a scrawny kid anymore, not with summers and springs and winters of work on his back now. He was smiling again– a smile that hadn’t stopped, “COMING! Jeez. I showered. Back field was a wreck after the storm, I was covered in mud.”
“We are going to be late–”
“We got time, pop, it’s ok.” Jorgi kissed your cheek, “You look good mom.”
“You look skinny. Now let’s get a move on, your father is worried we’re going to miss something.”
“I get it…Landon’s first appearance in the minors. He said there’s a coach scouting.”
“You’re goddamn right there will be.” Javi smirked, “And if we’re late we will miss them see a helluva baseball player.”
He put the car into reverse and they hit traffic that was so familiar to Javier it might have been emblazoned on his bones.
It was hard being home, sometimes, and hard being the dad, and hard being the officer, and hard. It was just plain hard, sometimes, in ways that defied reason and refused to yield for mercy. It was often hard.
But sometimes, just sometimes, you broke through and it was glorious.
_______________________________________________________
A/N: I started this 2 years ago. I have no excuse.
Tags have drastically changed!
So these are the new ones:
@indiegirlunited @spadesjadesfiction @harriedandharassed @avidreader73 @itsrubberbisquit @amneris21 @iceclaw101 @thelion-sroar @ferns-fics @tintinn16 @vabeachazn @brandyllyn @felteppsers @missladym1981 @stealyourblorbos @felteppsters @mostclevermiss @elegantduckturtle @100percentlazybonez @aliwritesfic-main @modiddys-blog
And for one night only the Javier character tags have returned:
Javi
@pascalesque
@stackedpaperbacks
@voteforpedro09
@lestradeslover
@fictionalbitch
@cinewhore
@galaxyofmando
@frasmotic
@phandoz
