Summary: Javier has to pay the price for his past mistakes - even in the dream that keeps haunting him.
Tags: lots of angst, guilt, regret, sadness, drinking
Author's note: I'm absolutely in my Javi era so I had to write another one... not a happy piece, but I hope you'll enjoy it nevertheless! xx
He wonders if it would feel the same to kiss her. If her lips would feel that soft, if her taste would be as intoxicating as it was years ago. And now she is right here, so close that her sweet scent fills his nostrils and makes him dizzy.
He hasn’t been here before, the place is not familiar. He stands by a window, the curtains drawn to the side, the grey light of early dawn allowing him to make out the silhouettes of the furniture and the woman in front of him.
And yet, he has been here a hundred times and more; this close to her, and even closer. He’s felt her body melt against his before, her arms wrap around his neck, her lips trail kisses along the scars on his skin. Years have passed, yet he remembers it all as if it was yesterday.
She is still breathtaking, after all these years — if not more. Her eyes are closed, her curly dark locks falling on her shoulders, framing her face that holds the peace of the sweetest dreams. He wants to gently trace his fingers across her cheeks, her jaw, her lips. He wants to wrap one of his arms around her waist and pull her close until there is no distance between them. He wants to lean in and softly press his lips against hers. He is yearning to know if it would feel the same to kiss her.
But he doesn’t move. He is afraid that his touch might destroy her peace, and he would hate himself if he stole one more good thing from her. Wait, he hates himself already. He hates himself for how he hid his feelings from her, and even from himself. He hates himself for how he treated her as if she meant nothing more than another woman in his bed. He hates himself for how recklessly he put her in harm’s way, and for every fucking thing that happened to her in Colombia.
Now all he wants to do is to kiss her and take her pain away. He imagines an alternate reality, where he would come home to her every evening. He would wrap her in his arms and kiss her. That would be the moment he would be waiting for all day, his favourite part of the day, coming home to his sweet girl and kissing her. Then she would ask him about his day, he would ask her about hers, they would talk about everything and nothing, just as they used to. He would then make love to her on the couch, on the kitchen counter, in the bedroom, or in the shower… in every corner of their home. And every night, he would pull her into his arms and kiss her goodnight before they fell asleep.
He wishes he had realised sooner that this was what he truly needed in his life. Her.
Now, it feels like it might be too late.
He slowly leans in. His face is inches from hers and he could easily close the distance between them. And God, does he want to! But he knows he doesn’t deserve to… An invisible force locks him in place, holding him back. He hands all the power to her, letting her decide where she wants to take this and what she is willing to give him.
So he waits. He waits with the nerves of someone awaiting their sentence. It feels as if his fate is at stake.
He doesn’t know how long he stands there; it could be seconds, minutes, or hours. It’s still dark, but somehow he can see her face clearly. He wishes he had done things differently. The guilt of the past and the desire of the present burn through him, his chest aching with the weight of it.
Suddenly, the room with all its greyness begins to fade away and the only thing he sees is her as she lifts her head. He takes a moment to admire the way her long, dark lashes lift as she opens her eyes to look at him and he tries to brace himself for what’s about to come.
The very moment her eyes meet his, he is pulled under into an ocean of pain and sorrow. And he can feel himself starting to drown as her cold gaze pierces through him.
----
Javier shoots up in bed, his eyes popping open, chest heaving, breath uneven and wet locks of hair stuck to his forehead.
A few minutes pass until his breaths even out and he lets himself fall back onto the cool sheets, squeezing his eyes shut.
All he can feel is guilt and loneliness eating away at him, a cruelly bitter mix of emotions stabbing through his chest in the most painful way. He misses her, more than he ever imagined it was possible to miss someone. Regret washes over him once again, for everything that happened and everything that didn’t. He reaches toward the lamp on the bedside table, knocking over a glass as he tries to switch it on.
„Shit” he mumbles, squinting his eyes at the harsh intrusion of the yellow light, and he reaches for the bottle of whiskey he keeps on his bedside table. His head throbs from the amount he had before going to sleep, but he needs more.
Javier fills the glass and raises it to his his lips. The feel of the burning liquor is his only hope to silence the thoughts in his head; his thoughts of the horrors of Colombia, of all the mistakes he made, of all the people he let down, of the life, or lack thereof he has in Laredo. And thoughts of her. Of Helena.
He has dreamt of her again, the same dream that visits him almost every night. And every time, Javier hopes that it will be different, that maybe this time she will open her eyes and look at him with forgiveness, that maybe she will even give him a sweet kiss of hers, even though he doesn’t deserve it.
He doesn’t deserve it — not even in his dreams. This is what he deserves; lying alone in his bed, drunk and consumed by his guilt.
Slowly, he reaches for the bottle and pours himself another glass.
