oops i changed the prompt a little.......... ;)have some santi x np!reader with frankie as a wingman
The first time you ever meet Santiago Garcia, it’s at 3:23am and you’re pounding your fist on the door to his apartment -- one level above your own -- with exhausted eyes and frustration boiling over.
Fucking Metallica.
Over. And over. As loud as could be.
“SLEEP WITH ONE EYE OPEN --”
“Hey! It’s fucking early, man!”
The music cuts and the door swings open. Dark eyes narrow and meet your own. Your lip curls into a snarl. The man on the other side gives you a once over. You’ve got no pants on. Your hair is a mess.
“Could you... turn it down?” you seethe, “Please. I’ve... I’m right below you. I can hear it. Loud and clear.”
“Right.”
“It’s late.”
“Yea,” a dismissive chirp, “I’ll, uh, I’ll turn it down, lady. Have a good night.”
The door slams in your face.
It’s morning. It’s 3:25am. The sun is going to rise in --
“EXIT LIGHT, ENTER NIGHT, TAKE MY HAND, OFF TO NEVER-NEVER LAND!”
Metallica kicks back on, this time louder.
He sees you in the Starbucks line the next morning on his way to work.
(He’s picked up a lax job at the local precinct running organized crime cases; Santiago can’t retire. He doesn’t have it in him. Despite the knees and the neck injuries, the retired Army Ranger still has the fight.)
You look at him from your spot in line and he can see the anger on your face.
Behind his sunglasses, Santi smirks. He picks up his to-go and walks out, leaving you in the shop without a word.
You hate Santiago Garcia.
He’s an ass. Bullheaded and rude and stuck-up and you don’t care if he’s served your country -- he’s a terrible neighbor and an even worse person. And all he fucking listens to is one Metallica album. One. One self-titled album, again and again. The stereo shakes the ceiling above your bed.
It’s been three weeks since you’ve first knocked on Santi’s door.
You’ve slept, maybe, a combined 10 hours since.
You’re not sure how no one else in the complex isn’t going bat-shit by now -- just two days ago you watched Santiago traipse by and greet Mrs. Lopez across the hall as if they were best pals.
On the twenty-second day of self titled album bullshit, you storm upstairs again.
This time, it’s 8:54pm and you’ve got an early shift tomorrow morning at the hospital. You don’t have time for this.
“What?”
You want to punch him in his stupid, smug, handsome face.
Instead, you ram a CD of the band’s 1996 album Load into his chest and narrow your eyes.
“Play something else. If I hear Enter Sandman one more time, I’ll crawl through your window and smash your stereo.”
Santi just looks at you, then the CD, and closes the door in your face.
It’s not a bad album.
But it’s bad when it’s played purposefully into the night.
After you’d given him the CD, you’d been blessed with silence for two whole nights in a row. Absolute silence. In fact, there’s no movement in his apartment at all.
On Thursday, however, Santiago is back to his usual antics. And his music is on. It’s a different album, albeit on, but you’ve, at this point learned that white noise and headphones can do the trick if you ignore the thrum of the drums and bass that rattle your walls.
You accept the fact this is now your life.
And then on Saturday, there’s silence.
And more silence.
And more.
And for a whole three weeks, you see nothing of Santiago in the Starbucks below your apartment, hear nothing of his usual Metallica. Mrs. Lopez asks you one afternoon if he’s alright.
You muster up the nerve to knock on his door.
Nothing.
You start to miss the music.
You, quite literally, run into him in the elevator.
He’s got a dufflebag slung over his shoulder, sunglasses perched on his nose as he shifts through a playlist on his phone. You’re not looking and neither is he. You connect shoulders and upon realizing it’s him, you almost say something.
There’s a bruise along his cheekbone -- a laceration is there, and it’s deep.
You blink. Santiago spares you a single nod.
“You’re back.”
He pauses half-way down the hall.
“Yeah.”
You hold the elevator open.
“Mrs. Lopez was asking for you.”
Santiago makes sure, that night, to play his music as loud as he can.
You see him more and more.
And then, one afternoon, he strolls into the pediatrics waiting room with another man and a baby stroller. There’s a baby girl in there, about six months with big eyes and bright giggle. The man checks in under the name Frankie Morales and when you walk into the exam room to find Santiago Garcia bouncing the baby girl in his arms, you nearly drop your clipboard.
Frankie, the father, blinks between the two of you.
The tension is so thick you could cut it with a butter knife.
“You two know each other?”
It was awfully nice of him to decide that, once he find out you were a pediatric nurse practitioner who was his best friend’s kid’s primary care, he’d shut his fucking Metallica off at a decent hour.
It’s 2:21am.
There’s banging on your front door.
In a bleary haze, you stumble out of bed. Anxiety pricks at your brain, wondering who the hell was trying to break your door down so early in the morning -- and then you hear the hushed panic of a phone conversation on the other side of the door.
“Frankie, que es tu problemo, huh, I think she’s fine. It’s a cough,” a breath, “I’m knocking on her door right now. Just calm down.”
Santiago spares you an apologetic look.
You take the phone, gesturing for him to come in. And for the next hour, you walk the Army-Ranger-single-father on the other line through a small dosage of aspirin and a heat compress for his baby girl. You even move to your laptop, juggling the phone and Morales’ personal information and his questions while Santi chews his lip.
“I’m making you an appointment for tomorrow morning,” you say softly, “So we can get the cough squared away and make sure it’s nothing serious, but it sounds like a cold turned upper-respiratory to me, Frankie. I wanna get her on a round of antibiotics so we can kick it in the bum.”
It’s 3:47am when you finally hang up the phone.
Santi’s face is soft.
“Thank you.”
You shrug.
“It’s part of the job.”
Santiago tags along to the appointment the next day. He brings you your coffee order from Starbucks. You’re not sure how he knows it but you don’t say anything. Instead, you thank him. And he smiles for the first time and your world stops.
You hate him, you try to tell yourself, you do.
He hates you, he says in his head, he does.
Both of those are lies.
You drown it out to the sound of Metallica overhead.
No pining for your neighbor in silence in this apartment complex.
I️ mean. I️ don’t know how I’ve followed you for all this time and didn’t realize we’re both 23 year olds named Chandler and I️ feel like now we have to fight or become best friends?
I never knew one of my followers was a female also 23 and also named chandler?!
Coincidence? I think not! Not but really, I’m a lover, not a fighter, so I guess we’ll have to become best friends!
