FIC- Friday Night Lights (Santiago, Tim, Julie)
Title: Under The Cloak
Rating: r (yes, we've moved it along at this point, I think)
Word Count: 1,864
Summary: Julie Taylor is nothing like the Madonna (Part V in the Permission To Exist series.)
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
When Santiago was little, his mother had a framed 8"x6" painting of the Madonna and Child hanging over their mantle piece that she got at the dollar store for seventy-five cents. When her and Pops got sent back to Mexico, she made sure that she took that painting with her, but she left the framed photo of Santiago being baptised. He thinks she was a little bit afraid that he might forget them after a few years. But that old photo always reminded him of Mami's painting, and so he couldn't look at it without tears welling up. He kept it in an envelope, always buried at the bottom of his drawer all the way through juvie, always afraid someone would find it.
The Madonna in the painting looked like his mami, curly black hair and fleshy brown arms cradling her baby boy, definitely not anything like golden Julie Taylor holding her peaches-and-cream little sister, but he can't help think of that painting as he watches Gracie Belle being christened. Julie has that same look of calm happiness that mami has in his picture- the same look of peace. The word for it is love, he knows, but it's been a long time since he's seen anything that pure and it almost hurts to say. His eyes are stinging and he knows he can't just start crying in front of Mr. Garrity, not after the stunt he pulled in the car on the way to the game.
He looks down at his hands, flicking dirt out from under his fingernails. They never seem to get clean after practice.
She hasn't spoken to him since almost taking his head off in the library the other day, and he can't say he really blames her. He's had no more ammo for Coach's superspy mission either.
He stands and claps with the rest of the church when the christening is over, and shuffles to the car, taking his sweet ass time for as long as possible. This is definitely going to be the most awkward thing he's had to do since getting into Dillon. Hanging out at Coach's house, eating cake to celebrate their baby girl, trying to avoid Coach's grilling about Fucking Mr. Barnett and trying to avoid Mrs. Taylor's all-knowing stares, like she knows that he jerked off to fantasies of her older daughter last night swaying around his room, doing that little routine he saw her practicing with the dance squad (in her underwear). Which is a weird fucking thing for him to reconcile with himself, now that he's spent the entire morning glimpsing Julie Taylor as the Virgin Mary. Virgin indeed, if all the talk at school is true, and Saracen never hit that.
So, of course, he's trying his best not to look at Julie at all, instead he's keeping an eye on Mr. Garrity, who's about three scotches deep, telling old glory stories. Santiago knows he should drive home later.
"Hey, Five-Nine," it sort of makes Santiago's skin crawl, that no matter who he's talking to, Tim Riggins always sounds like he's trying to pick someone up. He turns to his new teammate and fistbumps.
"Hey, Riggins." The boy looks even more out of place than Santiago does in scuffed boots and a tee shirt that's seen better days. At least Mr. Garrity made him put on a collared shirt. And then it strikes Santiago how very strange it is that Tim Riggins is here, when no other members of the team are. He knows he is only there because he goes wherever Mr. Garrity goes. "What are you doing here, man?"
"Oh, uh....Coach is letting me crash here for a little bit," Riggins grins wryly, a little embarrassed but everyone knows what's been going on with his living situation and Santiago sure ain't one to judge.
"That's cool, man," Santiago looks back down at his plate, untouched potato salad and steak tips. When he moves out of Mr. Garrity's place one day, he thinks he might start being a vegan.
"So..." Riggins continues, as if they'd known each other forever and this isn't the most awkward, weird thing, trying to make conversation with someone you don't really know in a place where you don't feel like you belong. "So, Coach has got me on this apology thing- he says I still owe a personal apology to anyone on the team. And I got to thinking, I don't think I've ever done a damn thing to you, and you weren't on the team when I got kicked off, so..."
"You don't have to do this, man." Santiago isn't even sure where this is going, but it's weird enough already. Mr. Garrity's getting loud across the room. He should get him out of here.
"No, no, no, Coach said everybody on the team. I just had to think on it a little," Riggins grins proudly, and Santiago almost wants to laugh in his face that he's so damn smug about thinking a little. "Five-Nine, I'm sorry I accused you of trying to screw Lyla Garrity."
Santiago rolls his eyes. Not this again. Lyla's sweet to him, sometimes he feels like she's treating him like a four-year-old when she checks on him in the lunchroom to ask how he's adjusting, but he'll always be grateful for what she did for him. "Whatever, man, it's cool."
Riggins's grin is ear-to-ear, pleased as punch. "Sorry I accused you of going after Lyla when you practically pop a woody every time Julie Taylor walks by." Like an idiot, he actually glances down at his crotch and sighs and just walks away when Riggins can't stop guffawing like a moron. He dumps his food in the trash, wincing a little because he still remembers what it was like to go hungry for a day or more, but he can't put one more piece of red meat in his mouth. Glancing around the room, he sees Mr. Garrity talking with the other old boys, occupied and happy as a pig in shit with his captive audience. Mrs. T and Coach are shopping Baby Grace around the room, taking pictures with every relative who came into town for the christening, and he just needs some time to be quiet.
He slips out onto the patio, and before he can turn around and breathe a sigh of relief, his jaw and his gut tighten up when he sees Julie sitting on the tire swing outside. She's kicked off her heels and pulled her hair up into a messy ponytail on the top of her head. Santiago thinks to himself that she's got a pretty neck- he never really sees it with all her hair. You're a fucking idiot. Pretty neck. Pendejo.
When she looks up at him, her eyes are undreadable. He can't tell if she's going to tear up again or if she's going to haul that tire off the tree and toss it at him. Her eyes are so, so blue. "Hey," she says. At least she's not yelling at him. He swallows hard and slowly approaches. She was afraid of him last week, but she seems okay now. Maybe because she knows she'll have the whole town running out with pitchforks if she only screams once.
"Hey," he answers, voice half-choked. He scuffs his sneakers into the Taylor's neat lawn and shoves his hands in his pockets. "It was, uh...Nice, today. The christening."
She shrugs. "Yeah, Gracie looked cute. And it made my mom happy."
He nods and he feels like he's standing still for about forty-seven minutes trying to think of something to say. She's just looking down at her pretty, pedicured toes, twisting herself around in the tire a little. He figures he'll never get a chance as good as this, so he decides to just muster up his cojones and grabs the chains holding up the tire to make her still and look up at him. He swallows. This is close. Closer than he's ever been to her. "Look," he begins and then pauses. "I'm sorry. About Fu- about Mr. Barnett. And the desk. I didn't throw it at him, though, I just tossed it into the wall."
Her mouth twists up into that little sneer he's seen on her before, working a story for the paper, seeing something she doesn't quite like. "Why are you apologizing to me?"
"Because..." Because he can't answer that.
Julie bites on her lip and looks down, and Santiago wonders if there's anything she has to muster up the courage to say. "Are you saying...That I had something to do with it?" His jaw drops. She finally looks up at him and he closes it, but he still can't answer, and his silence is all the answer she needs. She nods a little to herself and looks down again. "It's okay, you know, because...Because you were right."
"Wha- what do you mean? I was right about what?" Julie chews on her lip a little more and he wants to run his finger along that worried line, feel how soft it is. It's distracting him from conversation until-
"You were right about Noah- I mean...Mr. Barnett. He...He made a pass at me."
Santiago closes his eyes and counts to ten, but when he opens them, Julie's eyes are wide with fear again, and he doesn't even want to know what he looks like with the rage he feels coursing through his blood. "What the fuck does that mean- he made a pass at you?"
"Uh, he...He kissed me," Julie answers, so quietly. But she's on her bare feet in a second, and she grabs his hand to still him, and fuck Fucking Mr. Barnett, because he can't even enjoy it. "But...But he'll never do it again."
"How do you know? How do you know?" She squeezes his hand, and he feels his heart start to pound but she's distracting him again. He looks down at her little white hand covering his. "Does- do your parents know?"
She shakes her head and a few pieces of hair fall down onto her neck. He watches them slide across her collar bone. "No, I'm not going to tell them."
"Why are you telling me all of this?" She hasn't let go of his hand yet, and Santiago is finally getting used to the feel. He squeezes her back, easy. She's so little, he feels like he could crush her.
"I...I don't know why, I just...I wanted you to know," She barely comes up to the middle of his chest. She's so, so tiny. "Please don't say anything to anyone."
Santiago's eyes go wide. How the fuck can she put something like this on him? On him? He looks back down at their joined hands. Julie Taylor's asking him to keep a secret. She's got him and she knows it. Fuck. He just nods and she just smiles at him and runs back into the house.
When Julie Taylor smiles, her nose crinkles and her eyelashes bump against the top of her lids, and being able to see that, he thinks maybe burning in hell might be worth it.
Rating: r (yes, we've moved it along at this point, I think)
Word Count: 1,864
Summary: Julie Taylor is nothing like the Madonna (Part V in the Permission To Exist series.)
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
When Santiago was little, his mother had a framed 8"x6" painting of the Madonna and Child hanging over their mantle piece that she got at the dollar store for seventy-five cents. When her and Pops got sent back to Mexico, she made sure that she took that painting with her, but she left the framed photo of Santiago being baptised. He thinks she was a little bit afraid that he might forget them after a few years. But that old photo always reminded him of Mami's painting, and so he couldn't look at it without tears welling up. He kept it in an envelope, always buried at the bottom of his drawer all the way through juvie, always afraid someone would find it.
The Madonna in the painting looked like his mami, curly black hair and fleshy brown arms cradling her baby boy, definitely not anything like golden Julie Taylor holding her peaches-and-cream little sister, but he can't help think of that painting as he watches Gracie Belle being christened. Julie has that same look of calm happiness that mami has in his picture- the same look of peace. The word for it is love, he knows, but it's been a long time since he's seen anything that pure and it almost hurts to say. His eyes are stinging and he knows he can't just start crying in front of Mr. Garrity, not after the stunt he pulled in the car on the way to the game.
He looks down at his hands, flicking dirt out from under his fingernails. They never seem to get clean after practice.
She hasn't spoken to him since almost taking his head off in the library the other day, and he can't say he really blames her. He's had no more ammo for Coach's superspy mission either.
He stands and claps with the rest of the church when the christening is over, and shuffles to the car, taking his sweet ass time for as long as possible. This is definitely going to be the most awkward thing he's had to do since getting into Dillon. Hanging out at Coach's house, eating cake to celebrate their baby girl, trying to avoid Coach's grilling about Fucking Mr. Barnett and trying to avoid Mrs. Taylor's all-knowing stares, like she knows that he jerked off to fantasies of her older daughter last night swaying around his room, doing that little routine he saw her practicing with the dance squad (in her underwear). Which is a weird fucking thing for him to reconcile with himself, now that he's spent the entire morning glimpsing Julie Taylor as the Virgin Mary. Virgin indeed, if all the talk at school is true, and Saracen never hit that.
So, of course, he's trying his best not to look at Julie at all, instead he's keeping an eye on Mr. Garrity, who's about three scotches deep, telling old glory stories. Santiago knows he should drive home later.
"Hey, Five-Nine," it sort of makes Santiago's skin crawl, that no matter who he's talking to, Tim Riggins always sounds like he's trying to pick someone up. He turns to his new teammate and fistbumps.
"Hey, Riggins." The boy looks even more out of place than Santiago does in scuffed boots and a tee shirt that's seen better days. At least Mr. Garrity made him put on a collared shirt. And then it strikes Santiago how very strange it is that Tim Riggins is here, when no other members of the team are. He knows he is only there because he goes wherever Mr. Garrity goes. "What are you doing here, man?"
"Oh, uh....Coach is letting me crash here for a little bit," Riggins grins wryly, a little embarrassed but everyone knows what's been going on with his living situation and Santiago sure ain't one to judge.
"That's cool, man," Santiago looks back down at his plate, untouched potato salad and steak tips. When he moves out of Mr. Garrity's place one day, he thinks he might start being a vegan.
"So..." Riggins continues, as if they'd known each other forever and this isn't the most awkward, weird thing, trying to make conversation with someone you don't really know in a place where you don't feel like you belong. "So, Coach has got me on this apology thing- he says I still owe a personal apology to anyone on the team. And I got to thinking, I don't think I've ever done a damn thing to you, and you weren't on the team when I got kicked off, so..."
"You don't have to do this, man." Santiago isn't even sure where this is going, but it's weird enough already. Mr. Garrity's getting loud across the room. He should get him out of here.
"No, no, no, Coach said everybody on the team. I just had to think on it a little," Riggins grins proudly, and Santiago almost wants to laugh in his face that he's so damn smug about thinking a little. "Five-Nine, I'm sorry I accused you of trying to screw Lyla Garrity."
Santiago rolls his eyes. Not this again. Lyla's sweet to him, sometimes he feels like she's treating him like a four-year-old when she checks on him in the lunchroom to ask how he's adjusting, but he'll always be grateful for what she did for him. "Whatever, man, it's cool."
Riggins's grin is ear-to-ear, pleased as punch. "Sorry I accused you of going after Lyla when you practically pop a woody every time Julie Taylor walks by." Like an idiot, he actually glances down at his crotch and sighs and just walks away when Riggins can't stop guffawing like a moron. He dumps his food in the trash, wincing a little because he still remembers what it was like to go hungry for a day or more, but he can't put one more piece of red meat in his mouth. Glancing around the room, he sees Mr. Garrity talking with the other old boys, occupied and happy as a pig in shit with his captive audience. Mrs. T and Coach are shopping Baby Grace around the room, taking pictures with every relative who came into town for the christening, and he just needs some time to be quiet.
He slips out onto the patio, and before he can turn around and breathe a sigh of relief, his jaw and his gut tighten up when he sees Julie sitting on the tire swing outside. She's kicked off her heels and pulled her hair up into a messy ponytail on the top of her head. Santiago thinks to himself that she's got a pretty neck- he never really sees it with all her hair. You're a fucking idiot. Pretty neck. Pendejo.
When she looks up at him, her eyes are undreadable. He can't tell if she's going to tear up again or if she's going to haul that tire off the tree and toss it at him. Her eyes are so, so blue. "Hey," she says. At least she's not yelling at him. He swallows hard and slowly approaches. She was afraid of him last week, but she seems okay now. Maybe because she knows she'll have the whole town running out with pitchforks if she only screams once.
"Hey," he answers, voice half-choked. He scuffs his sneakers into the Taylor's neat lawn and shoves his hands in his pockets. "It was, uh...Nice, today. The christening."
She shrugs. "Yeah, Gracie looked cute. And it made my mom happy."
He nods and he feels like he's standing still for about forty-seven minutes trying to think of something to say. She's just looking down at her pretty, pedicured toes, twisting herself around in the tire a little. He figures he'll never get a chance as good as this, so he decides to just muster up his cojones and grabs the chains holding up the tire to make her still and look up at him. He swallows. This is close. Closer than he's ever been to her. "Look," he begins and then pauses. "I'm sorry. About Fu- about Mr. Barnett. And the desk. I didn't throw it at him, though, I just tossed it into the wall."
Her mouth twists up into that little sneer he's seen on her before, working a story for the paper, seeing something she doesn't quite like. "Why are you apologizing to me?"
"Because..." Because he can't answer that.
Julie bites on her lip and looks down, and Santiago wonders if there's anything she has to muster up the courage to say. "Are you saying...That I had something to do with it?" His jaw drops. She finally looks up at him and he closes it, but he still can't answer, and his silence is all the answer she needs. She nods a little to herself and looks down again. "It's okay, you know, because...Because you were right."
"Wha- what do you mean? I was right about what?" Julie chews on her lip a little more and he wants to run his finger along that worried line, feel how soft it is. It's distracting him from conversation until-
"You were right about Noah- I mean...Mr. Barnett. He...He made a pass at me."
Santiago closes his eyes and counts to ten, but when he opens them, Julie's eyes are wide with fear again, and he doesn't even want to know what he looks like with the rage he feels coursing through his blood. "What the fuck does that mean- he made a pass at you?"
"Uh, he...He kissed me," Julie answers, so quietly. But she's on her bare feet in a second, and she grabs his hand to still him, and fuck Fucking Mr. Barnett, because he can't even enjoy it. "But...But he'll never do it again."
"How do you know? How do you know?" She squeezes his hand, and he feels his heart start to pound but she's distracting him again. He looks down at her little white hand covering his. "Does- do your parents know?"
She shakes her head and a few pieces of hair fall down onto her neck. He watches them slide across her collar bone. "No, I'm not going to tell them."
"Why are you telling me all of this?" She hasn't let go of his hand yet, and Santiago is finally getting used to the feel. He squeezes her back, easy. She's so little, he feels like he could crush her.
"I...I don't know why, I just...I wanted you to know," She barely comes up to the middle of his chest. She's so, so tiny. "Please don't say anything to anyone."
Santiago's eyes go wide. How the fuck can she put something like this on him? On him? He looks back down at their joined hands. Julie Taylor's asking him to keep a secret. She's got him and she knows it. Fuck. He just nods and she just smiles at him and runs back into the house.
When Julie Taylor smiles, her nose crinkles and her eyelashes bump against the top of her lids, and being able to see that, he thinks maybe burning in hell might be worth it.