BREAKING THE RULES
Pairing: Santiago Garcia x Reader
Summary: You are Santiago's "girlfriend" but not really. You two never put a label on what you were to each other. You've been "dating" for a while now and everything was going well for both of you. But now he suddenly announces that he will be going on a high risk reconnaissance mission.
Word Count: 2018 words
Tags: Nothing really explicit, don't know how tags works on here but there's nothing explicit
You were tangled in Santiago's bedsheets, laying there in his shirt. You've once again slept over at his place after a steamy night. Your relationship was hard to describe, you two were not dating but you two were not just sex buddies either.
Santiago meant a lot to you and you knew that you did mean a whole lot to him too, more than he'd ever admit. You've been seeing each other for a while now, almost 5 years. 5 years of nights spent in his presence, of him caressing your cheek, begging you not to get attached to him too much, that the day will come when he'll have to leave for good because of his job.
But you never listened, hell you promised to yourself that you wouldn't get attached too much but still, there was this undeniable chemistry between you two, that constant pull, that love you felt for him. And when you looked into his eyes, you saw it, the love. It was not just the reflection of your love in his eyes, it was his own adoration reflecting. He loved you dearly, too much that he'd sometimes try to push you away.
It only happened twice since you met, the first time was the first night you two slept together and the second one was when he almost said “I love you” after a few drinks and a sloppy kiss, he immediately tried sending you home after that but you stayed. You stayed because you wanted to tell him that you loved him too but that was one of his rules when you first started seeing each other.
Number 5, no moving in together because of how dangerous his job was, even though you two practically lived together already. With you over at his place almost every night.
Number 4, no telling anyone that you two are together or who he is.
Number 3, no dates, he would sometimes offer dinner at his place where he would order take out and you two would eat together while talking, those nights were date nights clearly, but he never called them that, just “catching up”.
Number 2, no catching feelings. And if you did start to see him that way and let it be shown, he'd run away from you, he made it clear.
And finally, Number 1, never saying the three big words, even when establishing the rules, he never said the three words.
Clearly, those rules were the one of a struggling man who was just scared of you getting too close, seeing too much, knowing too much but you never commented on it, nor did you disagree with them.
You knew about his job, you knew everything and he knew that he could trust you with them. He was skeptical about talking about that before but he warmed up after seeing how carefree and trustful you are.
And that's where your relationship grew from.
You opened your eyes after not feeling his warmth next to you, that familiar warmth that never left your side unless he had to go to work. You sat up straight, eyes still getting used to the sunlight. You scanned the room, not seeing him.
You groaned and swung your feet off the bed, putting his slippers on as your feet touched the ground before lazily walking downstairs. You yawned as you reached the end of the stairs and saw him sitting there, reviewing a pile of papers in his binder journal.
“Morning Mr. Garcia, didn't wait for me to wake up today?”, a soft smile formed on your face.
He tensed up at the sound of your voice before closing his journal and standing up, his large frame seeming bigger as he stands to his full height before crowding your space, getting so close that there was no space even for a fly to fly between. “Hello beauty, didn't want to wake you up… You slept good?”, he rumbled in his deep voice, eyeing you with an intensity that almost made your legs shake.
“Slept good yeah.. but it would have been better to have your arms wrapped around me how I usually wake up to”, you stood on tippy toes, kissing his cheek, “You woke up earlier than you do on Sundays today”
“Had some stuff to go over”, he let out a low moan as you kissed his cheek before hooking his arms around the back of your thighs and picking you up effortlessly. He then walked towards the couch and sat down with you straddling his lap.
“Been keeping a journal now?”, you giggled as you caressed his hand before looking back at the binder notebook on the coffee table. “You like, write about me and stuff or just work, work, work and work?”, you giggle again and reach out for the notebook but he grabs your hand just as you're about to touch it.
“Don't please.”, he lets out before taking your hand and pressing a kiss on your palm. Clearly trying to distract you from whatever he's hiding in that journal but you play along, enjoying the fact that he's making out with your hand right before your eyes.
You smile, caressing the back of his neck with your free hand before shifting a little, bringing his head to rest on your chest and freeing the hand he was kissing to just hold him there, to ground him probably, you thought. But it was more to reassure yourself that he was still there, that he was real.
He took the opportunity to slide his hands down, grabbing your buttocks, just caressing you before turning his face to leave a trail of small kisses down your neck. He was acting unusually clingy, something he usually avoided because that's when his brain would short circuit and he'd nearly start confessing his love to you. Which to make clear, only happened once.
And that was the clearest sign that something was wrong. Something he probably was keeping from you. “Everything's fine?”, you pulled away slightly to look at him. He just looked up at you like you just interrupted his feast and nodded, then he went to kiss your neck one more time before you stopped him.
“Santiago, what is it that's going on”, one of your eyebrows went up and the way he let out a sigh before rubbing his mouth and leaning back on the couch made your chest tighten.
“I… will be going on a reconnaissance mission to Brazil to look for Lorea...”, he breathed out and then looked up at you, waiting for your reaction.
“Reconnaissance mission? Lorea? What?”, you frowned, hands leaving his chest to rest by your side.
“You heard it right, yeah… I know it's risky hence why I'm not going alone”, he weirdly looked calm, too calm. “And before you ask, Tom, Frankie, Ben and Will are going with me.. you know, my buddies who I told you about.”
“Wait now, pause. You and 4 other guys are going alone to look for a drug baron, alone. Just like that? Just you 5? You'll get killed!”
He looked a bit offended by that, he rubbed his mouth again before speaking. “You're doubting my capacity now doll… And those guys I am talking about are not newbies, they are the best at those types of missions”
“You call it a ‘mission’, I call it a death wish.”, you say flatly before getting off him. “Were you even going to tell me? Or would you just have taken your stuff in the early morning and left?”
He scoffs, oh he looks pissed. “What do you take me for? Of course I would have informed you. I was waiting for the right moment to! You just woke up, it's not like I was going to just jump at you and start telling you that I'm leaving you!”
You frowned deeper, “Inform me? Not even ‘ask’ me if I was okay with you leaving to go throw yourself right into your tomb? Santiago, what do YOU take me for?!”, your voice went up slightly.
“Oh please, you're acting like my mom! Actually even worse, you're acting like you're my wife. Of course I wasn't going to ask you! Because you'd say no! But I NEED to go!”, his words cut deeper than he wanted them to.
You just paused, your eyebrows relaxing as you just stare at him for a moment, letting him know that he fucked up. “Of course…”, you scoff after a moment of silence. “Excuse me for thinking that you give a shit about what I think and don't think after you've been treating me like your girlfriend for the past 5 years! Or for sleeping with me and for cooing me to sleep all those nights like you actually gave a single damn about me!”
He rubbed his eyes sighing before getting up, his tall frame looking intimidating, even though he didn't mean to be intimidating at that moment, “Baby, look I'm sorry… You know that's not what I mean, come on”, he pleaded.
You took a step back, refusing to let him touch you. “Oh I know exactly what you meant Santiago… I don't really know what I was expecting anyways..”
As you moved aside, going upstairs, you caught the panic in his eyes but decided to go fetch your things still.
“Baby love, come on don't be like that”, he pleaded, following you in the bedroom and before you could take another step, he sank to his knees, turning you around to face him. “I'm sorry, I really am. I didn't mean it like that. Don't leave. Not like that, I didn't think before speaking”, he took both of your hands and caressed them.
If you were being honest, him on his knees like that was pathetically hot but you were tired of just being the bed warmer. “Get up Santiago.”, you mumbled. “It's alright, I get what you were trying to say”, your eyes locked onto his before moving your hands away from him.
“No.. no you didn't get it, I didn't word it right… I care about you more than I should yeah, I'm scared shitless of losing you and I know that just leaving you like this for I don't know how long hurts after we've been in each other's life for almost 5 years”, he took a breath, getting off his knees as he stood up and cupped your cheek.
“I'm sorry, I fucking love you baby”, he whispered before kissing your lips softly, a gentleness that was occasionally there in his otherwise animalistic kisses but you just froze, not because of the sudden gentleness but because for the first time, the three big words went pass his lips. Something you never thought would happen. Not now, not ever.
You kissed him back softly after your brain started processing his words. He then pulled away, “I mean it, I love you. I should have told you this earlier and not now after telling you that I was going to leave, fuck those rules I made up, I love you”, he mumbled.
“I love you too… I love you Santiago”, you looked up at him, hands going into his hair.
“I just need you to trust me on that one baby love, I'll be back home in one piece, I promise you… It won’t even take long, just some days to get there and some days to get back home, just trust me, that's all I need”, he rested his forehead against yours, closing his eyes as he took your scent in, grounding himself.
“Okay… I trust you, you better not deceive me”, you nodded. Even though you knew it was a high risk mission that he was throwing himself into. You wanted to trust him because he knew what he's doing and he's always been good at what he does.
You know you can trust him with that because now you have the confirmation that he's committed and he'd do anything in his power to get back home safe.
For you.
Notes: Yayyyy!! This is my first post ever on here. I was procrastinating a lot and was self conscious about posting but here we go! I also have 2 TWD One Shot in my draft and a Wednesday one [Eugsley, for a friend of mine] in there but I was feeling a bit burned out lately and haven't finish them. I hope you liked this one as much as I enjoyed writing it ♡ It's really short but hopefully I'll get the motivation to not stop writing!
•Bow, Lace and Sparkle Divider are made by; @cursed-carmine
•Green Line Divider is made by; @chrisssiren
