Chapter Text
From there, it’s mostly misery - with no company, in his case. He smokes a fair bit out of the formerly plump baggie still hidden inside that trophy that he brought with him, but it doesn’t really do anything other than stretch the hours pointlessly as he races polygonal cars on polygonal tracks in Need For Speed. He doesn’t like that about himself, though, so on Monday morning he finds himself descending into the depths of the Madrid underground on his way to class.
Crowds. Voices. Depersonalization.
He’s not okay.
As he walks through the bustling corridors of the university, he wonders if Andrés will be there - probably not, though. The jig is up, he was never actually enrolled out of a thirst for knowledge or in pursuit of higher education, was he? Still, Martín’s heart sinks when the class drudges on and Andrés does not show up.
Surprisingly, Raquel isn’t there either - all through the weekend he’s contemplated calling her, but that would have entailed going to his phone carrier and figuring out shit that he never actually had to figure out himself, and he didn’t have the energy. For her (definitely not for Andrés, obviously, why would he?) he starts to take notes but it’s not long before his thoughts begin to wander and, before he knows it, everyone around him gets up and leaves.
“Berrote, will you—” Professor Alcade waves him over just as Martín was ready to leave himself.
Martín approaches, curious, trying to remember if they had any project to hand in that he forgot about. “Sir?”
“You’ve made yourself quite scarce lately, is everything alright?”
“Yes sir, I’ve, uh. I’ve had a death in the family; my father—”
“I’ve heard, my condolences,” says the professor, taking off his glasses. “But you’ve started slacking before that, haven’t you?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” lies Martín. (Andrés. He definitely means Andrés; he started missing classes, stopped participating as much.)
“I really wouldn’t care if you hadn’t shown consistent promise from day one,” says the professor. “I’ve seen this before though; kids who have been driven too hard by their parents who push themselves so hard they crash and burn — or that completely fall on their faces at the first whiff of freedom outside their parents’ home. Now, I don’t care—”
“Sir, I reall—”
“I don’t care which one you are,” he stresses, “but you should reevaluate whether your head really is in this.”
“What are you saying? That I should— drop out?” Martín asks, carefully. Then, when he sees the surprised and nigh-scandalized look on the professor’s face, “Or take a break? Take the semester off? I don’t understand.”
“I’m saying get yourself together and figure out what you really want to do because you’ve shown me that you are more than capable of doing anything you set your mind to,” says the professor. “Listen to him, drop out,” he then mutters to himself, shaking his head.
Well, that was new, thinks Martín as he goes up the amphitheater stairs two steps at a time, he can hardly remember the last time he disappointed a teacher. He doesn’t particularly enjoy the feeling of being called out like that but at least the professor did it in private, for which Martín is grateful. Still, it sours a day that started out as heavy and hollow, throwing him even deeper into this fucked-up mood that he can’t escape.
“Got change?”
“I got nothing but change,” answers Martín, acidly, turning to whoever tapped his shoulder. It’s a girl he’s never seen before, who’s handing him a bill. “Oh. Let me see,” he says, digging into his pockets for his wallet when her question finally clicks.
“I know it’s probably not the best option around,” says the girl, pointing to the bulky coffee vending machine by the wall, “but it’s right here and it has caffeine. And I really need caffeine.”
Martín makes a non-committal sound while he takes the smallest bill in his wallet - a five - and hands it to her. The math does not check out, however, he can’t break her twenty, but it’s whatever.
“It’s on me,” he says, and when the girl looks apprehensive, he continues. “You know what, get me one of, uh, whatever you’re getting. Is that alright?” It better be, because he has absolutely no idea what the going rate is for vending machine coffee. Hopefully under 2 euro 50 or he’s made an ass out of himself.
“You sure? Okay,” says the girl, taking the bill. “Hope you like a double espresso.”
Martín doesn’t have the heart to tell her that there’s no way that whatever the dusty behemoth spits out is espresso (he’s also noticed that it doesn’t have any water lines so it certainly makes its sludge with stale-ass water from a tank that’s probably never been cleaned); he takes the offered scalding cup and smiles politely and fucks off before she decides to take this interaction as further invitation to talk. So now he has a hot cup of stomach-churning “coffee” and a burning need for nicotine, which takes him all the way outside and right by the grand entrance to the university.
“Oh, hey,” he says when he realizes he landed right by one of his colleagues. “Got a light?”
“Mmm,” hums the bear of a guy, handing over the lighter he just put back in his pocket. “Are you good? I haven’t seen you in classes lately.”
“Yeah, a lot of stuff’s happened,” says Martín, lighting up a cigarette and handing the lighter back. He tries to play it cool, takes a sip of the coffee out of the sheer reflex of having a cup in his hand and immediately regrets it. “Ugh, this shit’s vile.”
“The machine on the first floor? Yes, it’s bad,” says the guy with his Slavic accent and his little coy smile that he always had when he looked at Martín. “I know a pretty good coffee shop two streets over, what about I take you there and we can have some real coffee? And maybe a movie later, or—”
Well, shit.
“That’s— I’m seeing someone,” he says, apologetically. “But we can— Coffee? Sure, of course, coffee,” he adds in a flurry, “But like, not—”
“Oh, okay.”
“Actually what’s the time? Don’t we have chemistry in like— five minutes ago?” Martín says once he checks his watch. “We should probably,” he says, gesturing towards the entrance, hoping instead to be erased from existence.
The guy - Mirko - is nice though, and doesn’t seem to acknowledge Martín’s sudden-onset terminal awkwardness. Of course, the interaction is burned in Martín’s consciousness, it battles its way to the top of his thoughts for the day (the classes don’t even make the top 10 of his concerns, as it happens) as he tries to understand why he said no. Is he in a relationship? Was he, truly? Does he even want to be in that— situationship anymore? Martín is pretty sure Mirko would have been down for a quickie, and if he’s to be honest with himself, the Martín of just a couple of months ago totally would have taken him up on the offer. Which begs the question— what the hell does he really want?
The cherry on top of how resourceful he is for having gone to one of those phone shops and gotten a new phone and SIM card is the fact that he’s also so gosh darned clever that he knows the most important phone numbers by heart. Martín gloats as he looks at his new (and severely truncated) contact list, now containing just three numbers - Raquel’s, Olivia’s, and Andrés’ - but all the endorphins of having actually accomplished something he’s never done before quickly run dry.
“Oh, he lives,” comes Raquel’s theatrical voice over the phone before Martín can even greet her right. “Why do you even have a phone if you don’t charge it? Or was your weekend that good that you didn’t want to divert a single ounce of attention away from your boyfriend? Oh, how was Alicante?”
“Uh, good,” he says, as soon as he feels like he can get a word in. “My phone was briefly out of commission, it’s all fixed now. How are you though; everything alright? I noticed you weren’t in class today.”
“Actually, this ties into why I’ve been trying to reach you in the past couple of days.” Here, she pauses, a beat, two - long enough for Martín to take the phone from his ear to check if the call is still connected. “I feel like I’ve been a bad friend lately, and I’m just about to make it worse,” she finally says.
“Oh god, you’re pregnant.”
“What? How would that make it worse?”
“I don’t know,” Martín shrugs to himself. “Kids generally do.” (Andrés has one.)
“No, not pregnant, and it would be a medical feat if I was,” she says, amusement lacing her words. “I really did want to tell you in person; to talk it out but I wasn’t sure when you’d be back— “
“You’re beginning to worry me,” Martín cuts her off. “Should I worry?”
“No, it’s good; it’s a good thing. But please don’t judge,” she says. “You are in a unique position to judge, moreso than ever before, but maybe don’t?”
“Uh-huh,” starts Martín carefully, thoughts racing a million miles a minute.
“I’m dropping out,” she finally says.
And of all the things that could have come out of Raquel Murillo’s mouth, those were the ones Martín would have never expected. He’d laugh but it’s just too absurd.
“Really? Really?” He adds, initial shock making way to irritation. “Are you the same Raquel who told me not to drop out just a couple of weeks ago?”
“To be fair, your grand plan after dropping out - if you can even call it a plan - was to do fuck all for an indeterminate period of time. Which you can still do; I’m not going to stop you, I just advised you against it. I’m dropping out because I know what I want to do, and I finally got the courage - well, the encouragement - to do it. I’m joining the police academy next year,” she says. “With Alicia.”
Of course it would be about Alicia.
“Then why are you dropping out? At least you’re finishing the semester, right?”
“Honestly I think that if I don’t do it now, I never will. We’re moving to Barcelona, there’s a really good program there to prepare us for the entrance exams in the fall. Plus, postponing it a year ensures I’m not sharing a class with Alberto.”
“Oh that piece of shit,” says Martín. “Isn’t it funny that you changed your mind about joining the police academy twice? First time at the very last second, because of a guy, and now, admittedly with some time to spare, but because of a girl?”
“You said you wouldn’t judge,” says Raquel.
“I said no such thing. But you know what? I’m not judging. Falling in love tends to make us do stupid shit.” He’s been looking at the suitcases he’s brought from his old place (he didn’t even have the energy to move them). “Listen, how did you— cope when you found out that Alberto was cheating on you?”
“Oh no,” she says, empathetic and wrong in her immediate assumptions. “Oh, I'm so sorry, Martín. He's an asshole.”
“No, it's not— He didn’t cheat on me, although he did lie to me about something pretty big and I don't know how to deal with it. I like him, Raquel. I really, really do, but he lied to me. But I also really fucking miss him, you know? Did you miss Alberto after you guys broke up?”
“God no,” says Raquel. “Not even a little bit. Not even the good times.”
“But he lied to me, about something that’s always been a pretty big deal for me except— it’s suddenly like, whatever. What am I doing? He's just— a guy. A liar, and he's so— “ Martín makes a strangling motion that is entirely heartfelt. “I want to hate him but all I can do is find excuses for him.”
“Sounds to me like you made a decision.”
“But is it a good decision? I feel like I should be more pissed at him.”
“Then be pissed at him. Has he hurt you? Do I need to kick his ass?”
Martín actually laughs now, tension alleviated somewhat.
“Nah, I can kick his ass on my own, but thanks for the offer.”
“Anytime. And, in just a couple of years, maybe I’ll arrest him for you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says, and really, for some reason, hopes that she doesn’t.
Martín stares at the giant cock and balls spray-painted on the roller doors covering the entrance to Santiago’s restaurant. It’s barely nine in the evening, the place should be open, bustling with people, and overrun with obscenely delicious aromas, but instead, it’s quiet and - by the looks of it - closed. It doesn’t stop him from banging on those doors until he finally hears some sounds from inside.
“We’re closed,” comes Santiago’s voice from behind the metal screen.
“Why?” Asks Martín, the only question he was able to come up with in response.
There’s more sounds coming from inside, some cursing, and the roller starts going up with a terrible squeaking noise.
“What do you mean why, you idiot? What kind of question is that?” Asks Santiago, the irritation in his voice dissipating as he ushers him inside. The roller door comes back down, and they’re left in complete darkness until Santiago flips a switch. All the chairs are legs-up on the tables, and there are boxes everywhere. “Seeing how you’re here, want to lend me a hand?”
“Not particularly,” answers Martín. “Did you go out of business or something? How did you manage that, I seem to remember your tables were always full.”
“I didn’t. I’ve been thinking about switching gears for a while now, I’ve just gotten some new motivation to take the plunge. What about you, what brings you here and why could you not take the locked door as a hint to fuck off?”
“Nothing, I was just dying for some of your grilled meats,” lies Martín. He looks around. “I see the fridge is still working, is it okay if I help myself to a beer?”
“See, if I did that I’d have gone out of business long ago,” says Santiago. He heads towards one of the tables, setting two chairs down. “Get me one too,” he tells Martín, taking a seat and leaning back.
“What motivation did you just get?”
“Just— turns out this chick I’ve had a thing for had a thing for me all along,” says Santiago, taking the offered bottle.
“You’re closing your restaurant for a chick?” Martín is incredulous. “You’re the second person I’ve talked to today who’s uprooting their entire life for a girl; did I miss something? Is pussy really this powerful?”
“It’s not just the pussy, although I’m not going to lie, it’s definitely worth it, especially after thinking about it for so long.” He shrugs. “I already wanted to leave Madrid, now I have the perfect excuse to finally do it.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have no idea. Ágata’s come into some money recently, I have my own savings; we’re just going to take the first plane to a place neither of us has ever been to and we’ll take it from there.”
Ágata. Martín’s smile falters. At least she’s alive.
“How did she— come into money?” And why is she eager to leave the country?
“She mentioned an inheritance, but— Look, I don’t care. I know something’s fishy, she told me she didn’t have family but I'm not going to argue my way out of a good thing. And you’re dying to tell me something, what is it?”
“Nothing. Well, not tell you something, more like— I don’t know what to do. I know what I want to do, which happens to be something that goes against everything I should want to do.”
Santiago stares at him, full-eye contact, looking steely and over it. “By all means, keep it as vague as possible,” he replies dryly.
“Should I forget a pretty big lie this guy told me just because I really really like him?”
It sounds about as ridiculous as it actually is, but Santiago seems to take it seriously and stay on an answer for a while before setting his beer bottle down and giving Martín his full attention.
“You know,” he starts, “You’ll never be as young as you are now.”
“Yeah, that’s just how time works,” Martín deadpans.
“Just how time— you asshole. I’m saying, you’re young, everyone expects you to be dumb because you are; you don’t know shit because you haven’t done shit yet. That comes with time, with living, and with making mistakes.” Martín opens his mouth to say something but Santiago clearly doesn’t care for his input since he continues regardless. “Look, I don’t know exactly what your guy is involved in and frankly I don’t want to know; what I do know is how he looked at you and how he spoke about you— you are talking about Andrés, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” answers Martín. It’s pointless to deny though, and Santiago seems to know anyway.
“Well,” continues Santiago, “I also remember how you were when he fell off the grid for a couple of weeks. I have no interest in playing Cupid; be with him, don’t be with him, I’m not affected either way; but come on — don’t be stupid about this. I was stupid with Ágata; I could have persisted in my dumbassery when she sprung on me not only that she’s been into me for a while, but also that she has a whole lot of cash all of a sudden and instead of realizing what’s more important - that she’s into me - I’d have been gotten fixated on how she got that money.”
“So you think I should forget about it?”
“I think you’ve already made up your mind and just want someone to validate your decision. And you’ll keep asking people until someone does. To that effect — help me load these boxes and ask me again after that, yeah?”
“Fuck you,” laughs Martín, but helps him anyway. He doesn’t ask again, he already knows what to do.
It’s three in the morning and he’d walked the whole way to Andrés’ apartment fuelled by nothing but drunken determination and tapas. One very satisfying stop at a drinking fountain along the way and he got significantly more sober, though no less determined.
The building doesn’t seem to have an intercom so Martín finally pulls out his phone and stares long and hard at the name on screen. He texts Andrés that he’s outside, then sits on the stoop and waits.
And waits.
He’s never really given the possibility a thought (what a dumbass) but— what if Andrés took off? He did say that had his initial plan worked out, he’d have disappeared - what’s to keep him from doing it now? Or worse, what if he didn’t leave and instead had someone else in his apartment, and needed time to kick them out.
Or maybe he wasn’t kicking them out, he just chose them over Martín. Or there was no one else up there at all, he's just not interested in Martín anymore.
Martín turns when the door makes a loud clicking noise as it unlatches and a woman on her phone comes out. He doesn’t wait, slipping inside before the door closes shut, and takes the stairs two at a time until he gets to the last floor. It’s quiet. Martín knocks, and in the silence of the building, it feels like he can almost hear an echo from the other side of Andrés’ door.
He really is gone.
Martín is a fucking idiot.
He walks along the empty streets, fighting the temptation to just have a little sit down because he’s so sleepy that if he blinks for a second too long he’ll fall asleep - so he walks on. Eventually, he does flag a cab, and his heavy eyelids fall shut as soon as he gives out his address. He falls into nothingness, his consciousness simply turned off until the driver tells him that they’ve arrived.
It’s been a long night. He’s way past exhausted. Bernardo is still somehow awake, nodding politely as Martín walks past and collapses against the wall of the elevator. Long night.
And Andrés really did leave. He missed his shot. His shot of being really, truly, monumentally dumb, but a shot he might regret not taking nonetheless, if Santiago is right. He can maybe ask some of his father’s security to help track Andrés down, though— should he? What if he just doesn’t want to be found?
And then the elevator doors open and Martín can see, on his doormat, the folded figure of Andrés seemingly asleep against his door like they’re in some cheesy rom-com. He’s not asleep, though; he gets to his feet as soon as he sees Martín, face lighting up.
“I think your phone is off, I tried calling you.”
“Battery’s dead,” says Martín, approaching and trying really fucking hard to not show the avalanche of emotion he’s cycling through. “What are you doing here?”
“I came back. I shouldn’t have left in the first place.”
Exhaustion melts off of Martín’s bones, washed out by relief and wrath and longing; all at once and full-force. It’s been a rollercoaster of a night to top off a fucking loaded weekend - he’s not to blame for not thinking clearly. He’s not thinking of anything, not consciously, when he surges into Andrés’ arms, brackets his face in his palms for a brief second to look at him - it’s really him, he’s really here, he’s back - and draws him in for a searing kiss. He’s overwhelmed enough that he’d cry if he could make sense of what he’s feeling, but since he can’t, the next best thing he does, before any of them have time to think or to react, is to knee Andrés square in the groin.
Obviously, there’s no apologies to be offered (on either side), not when Andrés is curling into himself with a pathetic grunt and trying to paw at Martín with one desperate hand to keep himself upright, but he feels just a little bit better.
“Let’s get inside,” says Martín, hand deep in his pocket to retrieve the keys.
“Are you sure it’s not a problem?”
“Fuck you, it’s not a problem,” says Martín, cattily, while he rolls a thick joint. “I’ve just had the longest fucking day and I need something to stop the world from spinning as fast as it does. Do you know Professor Alcade basically called me a piece of shit today?” Andrés eyes him with genuine surprise, which makes him redact his stance. “Not in those exact words. He told me to get my shit together, which implies my shit isn’t together, and, okay, fine, he’s not wrong and I have maybe put in less effort than before but I’ve never been singled out by a teacher like that? And I got conned into doing manual labor, and Raquel is moving to Barcelona to become a cop and you came back and I— “ A sigh, a long lick at the sticky part of the rolling paper. “Maybe all of them are right.”
He sparks the lighter and takes a deep, hot breath, letting the spicy, stifling aroma burn its way into his lungs. He’s smoking inside (because it’s his apartment and he can, fuck you very much) sat on the floor between the couch and the coffee table. He’s gone so far beyond tired that his body is running on nothing but fumes, and the emotional whirlwind’s not helping either - he’s not falling asleep, not without help, and since alcohol’s prone to giving him hangovers—
“Who’s right and about what?” Andrés asks as he puts out his hand and Martín passes him the joint out of habit.
“Wait, I thought you said you didn’t like losing control?”
“Let’s face it, I was never really in control around you,” says Andrés, then takes a deep breath which he holds and it’s clearly not the first time he’s done this. “This is really strong,” he adds, barely controlling a cough.
When the joint dies, it does so in silence, and by Andrés’ hand. It was a quick affair, like they were in a rush to get it over with, which they shouldn’t be; that’s why he wanted to get high to begin with, to make the world spin slower. To see it through unfocused eyes.
“How are your balls?”
“Tender.”
“Sorry,” says Martín, leaning back into the side of the couch, spreading his legs on the floor like he’s one of his old action figures that he used to pose. “Well, not really but you know what I mean. My sympathies.”
“I don't dare imagine what you'd have done if I'd picked your lock like I initially wanted to,” says Andrés.
“You wanted to break into my apartment?”
“Only for a little bit, then I thought better of it.”
Right; of course, because he’s a thief. Martín can’t tell if it's the drugs or what, but he isn’t as bothered by it as he probably should be. “How did you go past Bernardo? He would not have let you up; he guards this building like— like— Cerberus. Except with fewer heads. And not a dog. And, okay, Cerberus actually let people in,” says Martín, too deep in his misguided simile.
“That would make your building Hades, and it’s far more welcoming than that,” says Andrés. “And he didn’t let me in. I told you I’m good at what I do.”
“No, really - how did you do it? There’s only one way in.”
Andrés smiles, lazy, soft, and really, truly high. “Let me hang on to one shred of mystery, okay? Just one.”
“Right, just that one. Then you have to tell me what’s in that bag you have with you that you purposefully didn’t mention, almost like you hoped I wouldn’t notice,” says Martín.
“I will,” he says, then doesn’t.
“Is it clothes? Did you plan on spending the night here now that you’ve— what, you’ve sold your place right? It sounded like it was all but deserted when I went over.” I thought you left for good, thinks Martín.
“You’ve been to my place?”
“Yeah, just— “ Martín sighs. He exchanged clarity for the ease of truth that drugs afford him, so he gives into it. “I missed you. Why did you leave?”
“You told me to,” answers Andrés candidly. Which is true, so fucking true, and yet—
“I didn’t think you’d fall off the face of the earth. I thought you’d at least call or something,” he says, forgetting that even if Andrés had, he couldn’t have known. “Where did you even go?”
“I went to see my brother. After I squared things off with Ágata and Daniel,” he adds.
“The— brother,” adds Martín, pointlessly. “The one with the halothane and the strike team on call.”
Andrés nods, again like that’s a normal thing for normal people, let alone for people their age. “I thought working with him on his plan - our father’s plan - would be distraction enough to make everything alright again, but— It wasn’t. Nothing was alright; in fact I was so out of sorts that he picked up on it immediately.”
“Perceptive guy.”
“He can be,” concedes Andrés, getting more comfortable (well, as comfortable as he can be) against the side of the couch. “Only sometimes. I had to tell him about my diagnosis; I really didn’t want to, and a part of me regrets doing it after I saw how hard he took it. He came up with so many ideas; with treatment plans, with novel medicine — hell, he even found me this experimental drug trial that apparently has very promising results—”
“That sounds— that actually sounds good, right? A chance? Right?”
Andrés just waves the whole concept away like a chance at life is nothing.
“Of course, since that wasn’t really what was wrong, and since it wasn’t the first time he’s seen me after a heartbreak, he sniffed out the real reason eventually. And you know what I find interesting? Maybe even insidious.”
“Hm?”
“The fact that I found it easier to tell him that I’m dying, than that I’m in love with a guy.”
And it’s— it’s food for Martín’s soul, to hear that Andrés is in love with him. It doesn’t irritate him like it did back in that panic room; it’s not antagonistic, it’s the sweet, painful longing that pulls at his own heart too.
“I just don’t know how to be with a man,” adds Andrés.
“I don’t think it’s all that different than being with girls.”
“But it is though. It was so effortless to fall for you, and yet so complicated to— understand it. To accept it. Will it ever make sense? Will it ever get easier?”
Martín, who’s not really out of the closet, not exactly, can only laugh. “Yeah. Maybe. Ideally. It’s easier here and now, as opposed to — other places and in other times, but that’s no guarantee that—” He sees how conflicted Andrés really is about it, and realizes that he’s not really helping. “Yes, it does get easier; especially if you have someone beside you as you make sense of it.”
“Yes?” Andrés asks, very much a, “promise?” that Martín wants to keep.
Martin startles awake, momentarily convinced that he's falling - an especially cruel misfire on his brain's part seeing how he happens to be on the floor. Oh yeah, the weed. Andrés. The neverending day.
"Hey," he says softly, touching Andrés' shoulder. "Let's get to bed, okay?"
Andrés grumbles, sleep-woozy and delightfully disoriented as he holds on to Martín's hand and follows him to the bedroom. He'd have taken Andrés there the previous night, right after the nut kick; caveman-like dragged him by his hair and thrown him into his bed because no matter how broken his heart may have been he’s still hot for him (and okay, maybe more than just that)—but the living room seemed neutral enough for where they were at and for once in his life he wanted to talk about it.
Andrés falls back asleep before Martín can even think whether he should make him more comfortable (by taking at least some of his clothes off); he hums something that may or may not have been words and then his body goes lax and his breathing regular. Martín, while fighting with a sheet for no reason other than the fact that he can - and Andrés sat on a corner of it - thinks his sleep is gone, left over on that living room floor and, before he closes his eyes and opens them back up in the bright morning sun, he wonders — why is he so afraid?
“Good morning,” comes Andrés' voice before Martín even opens his eyes. “You don’t have any kind of food in your apartment, did you know that?”
Martín makes a noise, sleepy-human for “whatever”, then drags the adjacent pillow over his head to cut the aggressive morning sun that’s flooding the room. The gesture doesn’t seem to stop Andrés, who’s as talkative as ever.
“I hope you weren’t lying when you said you liked my croque monsieur, but I got a few other things too, just in case. Come on, get up,” he wheedles, and Martín’s neurons start firing enough for him to sit up eventually, more intrigued than annoyed.
There’s a hotel-style tray on wheels beside his bed, carrying a cornucopia of breakfast foods. And - blessedly - coffee, that Andrés is pouring from an ornate French press into some very delicate cups that Martín is one hundred percent are not his own.
“What’s— how did you get this?”
“I still have a connection at the Hilton downtown, they brought everything faster than light, but even so— dig in! I know their pastries are out of this word - not quite on the level of those at Saint Jacques le Juge, but still a culinary delight. Oh, and the strawberries are fresh, apparently chef Brion picked them himself yesterday,” he says, picking up one from one of the fruit platters and taking a bite while maintaining full eye contact. “Now I regret not asking for any whipped cream, or even chocolate, but I think he would have been offended—”
“Wait, stop. You got me breakfast from halfway across town.”
“I got us breakfast, yes,” says Andrés, who’s wearing one of Martín’s robes like no big deal, like everything is fine and they’re at the moved-in-together, sharing-clothes level of intimacy. Which, if Martín is being honest, doesn’t feel bad at all, just— unearned. “I’d have made something myself but as I said before — I can’t make breakfast out of condiments and stale bread.”
“Is this you apologizing?”
“Is it working?”
Martín gestures the tray closer, then sits on the side of the bed cross-legged, picking up the whole pastry platter. The croissants do look mouth-wateringly plump. He takes one, light and not at all oily for how buttery it smells, then takes a bite that sends lighter-than-air crumbs all over the bed and his lap.
“Fuck. Maybe,” he says, looking up at Andrés. “I mean. It’s not— “ He stops, not just to be able to scarf down more of that actually delicious croissant, but also to put order in his thoughts. “I hate that you lied to me. I hate that you only got close to me to use me; I don’t think there are enough pastries out there to buy your way out of that.”
“There’s also a croque monsieur,” adds Andrés, serious enough that Martín actually believes him for the whole second it takes before his face softens up. “I want to make it up to you.”
“How?”
Wordlessly, Andrés takes the plate from Martín’s hand - despite the obvious indignation in his eyes - then climbs on the bed and right onto his lap. Just like that.
Manipulative fucker.
Suddenly, the room gets smaller; it shrinks to a bubble that contains only the two of them and the galaxy-worth of feelings that hang heavy around them. Small and dense, like a universe on the brink of bursting into life.
“I missed you so much that I didn’t know what to do with myself,” says Andrés, a mischievous demon poised on his lap. “No matter what I did, what I tried; all my thoughts converged to you like you were the only thing that ever existed, the only thing that ever mattered. The only thing I wanted,” he says, lower, getting tantalizingly close to Martín’s lips without actually touching. “I felt your absence like a wound, like a missing limb, like I lost the one thing that made me whole and the mere idea that I may not see you again drove me mad.”
Martín’s throat is drier than the desert. His breath is slow. “Uh-huh,” he murmurs, unfocused. His hands slip under Andrés’ robe (his own, actually) and he feels skin above the band of his pants; warm and soft and distracting. He smells like Martín’s shower gel, and still, despite that, he smells just like himself, which is immediately and immensely comforting.
“Sergio said I should respect your wishes and I should give you space, but—”
“Here you are,” finishes Martín, slowly creeping his hands up Andrés’ abdomen, testing the resolve of that bathrobe’s belt. “Such a fucking poet, too.”
“I brought you something. If you want it.”
“If I want it? I’m not generally averse to gifts.”
Andrés hums, nodding, as he resettles his weight in Martín’s lap. “Remember when you told me about your— obsession with the Bank of Spain vault?”
“I— “ Martín sets the plate down, greasy fingers, flakes and all. “Did you— did you break into the vault?”
“Oh no,” Andrés blinks like an owl, surprised at Martín’s surprise. “No; what? No, but I was thinking you might be interested in further developing your plan.”
Silence. The words hang in the air for a fraction of a second, then it’s just— silence. Martín opens his mouth, finds that he can’t really find something appropriate to say, then closes it again to look back up at Andrés with (what he thinks are pretty obvious) question marks in his eyes. “Huh?”
“I have building plans, an org chart, standard operating procedures for most functions - including for the security team - personnel files on some key employees, some articles I found that I thought you might also find interesting— “ He stops, biting the inside of his lip. “You don’t have to do it, but you can. I’m right here and I’ve done this plenty of times, we can even get Sergio’s—”
“Wait, sorry, did you just— do you want me to break into to fucking Bank of Spain?”
“Only if you want to,” repeats Andrés, like it’s not completely insane. “You can do it. I see it in you, you’re— the same spark my father has; Sergio, even I, the same drive, the same mind; you have it. You can do it. And I want to do with with you.”
“So this is breakfast with a side of crime? Breakfast and bank robbery. What?”
“Of course, we can always start small — in fact, we should — maybe a transport van first, some jewelry stores, a small local branch, but— “ A smile. Andrés fucking smiles, beautiful and brazen and as sure of himself as anything. “I want you to be who you want to be. Who I know you can be.”
“And you think I want to be a criminal? I’m pretty sure my father was swept up in some shady shit, I don’t want any of that; you know it.”
“No, nothing like your father. He got his wealth by stepping on the small guy and stealing what should have rightfully been theirs - what I propose is stealing from guys like him. That gold, in the Bank of Spain’s vaults, just like a lot of the items in your father’s vault— they didn’t get there through honest means. You could have a chance to give some of that back.”
“I’m no Robin Hood.”
“Fine, I don’t care,” says Andrés. “I’m the last person to judge, I am used to having a… comfortable life, shall we say.”
“This is insane,” says Martín. “What?”
“You don’t have to. We don’t have to, if that’s not what you want to do we can just— travel. Get to see the world. I have more than enough money to live what’s left of my life with no worries, I just— I want to have a chance to spend it with you,” he adds, maybe softer. “If you want.”
Shit. That’s right.
“Fuck,” says Martin, then shakes his head. “That’s not fair.”
“I know. But life really doesn’t care about fairness, does it? You were born wealthy, I was born with the seed of an early death in me - but we’re both in charge of what we want to do next.”
“But that’s the thing; I have no fucking idea what I want to do,” says Martín, and that’s really the crux of it. “I just don’t; I don’t think I ever did.”
“That’s alright, the good thing is you don’t have to do anything. What do you think?”
“Besides that all of this is ins—”
“Beautiful,” Andrés cuts him off. “Bold. Risky. Even if you don’t as much as open that bag, you can just take off with me. Anywhere in the world, to do anything. We can— circumnavigate the globe. Climb the Everest; buy the most luxurious castle in the Loire Valley and pay the staff so lavishly that they’ll have to speak Spanish.”
Martín snorts at that, then pinches the bridge of his nose as if to prevent the headache he knows he should be having (given— everything) and eventually sighs when he realizes that the little warning light in his brain must be broken.
“Okay.”
Andrés seems less surprised than Martín to hear him say it. “Okay?”
“Yeah, fuck it.”
“Well, that’s not how I’d have wanted to hear it, but—”
“Yes, sure, let’s do— “ Martín shrugs, feeling suddenly drunk on these unknowable prospects full of possibilities. It’s a lazy morning; in fact, he should be in class but the realization doesn’t faze him at all. Fuck school. Fuck all of this. He’s got fuck-all waiting for him; and not just in terms of his inheritance or the heavy expectations that were always put on him. He’s free and he’s finally given an out. Sure, it’s an outrageous out, but— “Yeah, I’ll rob a bank with you.”
“It will probably—”
“Yeah, yeah, start small,” says Martín, pulling the robe open. This whole thing got him suddenly horny (which makes sense, he makes his dumbest decisions when horny) and inexplicably elated. “Come ‘ere.”
“I’m serious,” says Anders, who clearly sees the horny it in him and doesn’t look entirely opposed to where the morning may lead. “We need to start with something small, like—”
“Hello,” says Martín. “Let’s start with hello.”
“Hi,” says Andrés with a smile that creases the corners of his eyes.
“Hi. You’re cute, how about we fuck and then we rob a bank?”
Andrés laughs, then leans down for a kiss that tastes like possibility and freedom (and strawberry).
“I like this. How about I take you out for lunch, we get to know each other properly and then— who knows?”
“Who knows,” relate Martín. “We may even steal some gold together.”