Chapter Text
Sergio has never felt one with nature. They never seemed to align. At times, it even seemed to be a mockery of him. The bloom of spring outside the window of his hospital room, luscious verdant green against a clear sky while he withering inside, grey and ashen. Now, though, below the darkening gold sky, the sea rages softly. And it feels the same inside him.
He’s agitated. Furious, guilt-ridden, alert. But it’s all wrapped in a silky calm; for the first time in three years, he feels once more in his natural element.
Andrés appears as a dark silhouette against the sunset, walking towards him with a heavy gait; slow in the disguise of regal. Sergio gulps. Pained in the disguise of intentional. His face is colorless with an ashen layer of sweat when he takes a seat across from him on the porch. He sets his steaming chamomile tea on the coaster, slightly out of the center.
Sergio adjusts it, aware that it’s exposing his nervousness but unable to stop himself. ‘How are you feeling?’ is on the tip of his tongue before he pulls it back. Mostly because it’s useless in its redundancy. Sergio is well aware. And Andrés won’t answer with the truth either way. Instead, he will smile and reaffirm his positive state, perhaps throw an ‘‘I think I’m getting better, hermanito, I can swear it.’ for his sake.
He’s thinner than he has ever been; his constantly adjusted suits to his rapidly decreasing weight still hang loosely over his frame. Just as he sits across from him now. Sunken eyes, hollowed cheeks, thinning hair. He’s panting faintly, clearly trying to cover it since he sat down, but Sergio knows that a walk from his bedroom to the porch is all takes to exert him now. The walk even more difficult with his swollen ankles and feet. The symptoms of cardiomyopathy.
The signs repeating themselves across the decades in between.
Sergio takes his glasses off and wipes them with the hem of his shirt. Head hung low. Swallowing back the tears pricking his eyelashes.
“I take it our dear Tokyo isn’t paying us a social call on this beautiful day,” Andrés goes straight to the point.
Tokyo has just gone to sleep in the guest room thirty minutes ago, so it’s unlikely Andrés ran into her. Most likely he heard them from his room in the morning. He still wakes up early, as he always had. But his mornings have been getting longer and longer before he’s ready to show his face to the outside world. The rituals that took him an hour or two before eat up most of his day now. In their household, they all know to leave him be. Even Paula knows never to approach his room before he gets out himself, be it by midday or by sunset. Some days are worse than others, is all he tells the girl.
Andrés had always enjoyed mornings; greeting them with a smile brighter than the sun. The thought, the memory, grasps Sergio’s insides and pulls.
Sergio shakes off his thoughts. Focuses on the matter on hand. “Río-” he cuts himself off, then corrects, “- Aníbal is captured.”
Andrés gives no reaction. Yet. As though it’s exactly what he had expected to hear. He lazily crosses his legs and takes a sip of his tea.
Sergio rolls his dice. Carefully. Andrés’ reactions and more swings have been more…unpredictable lately. Easily irritable, blown up reactions over the smallest of things. It’s explainable by his sleep, if nothing else. He barely gets any. And in spite of Andrés’ refusal to share this with Sergio, he understands it’s not just the pain. Not when Andrés rejects any sleeping pills, which doesn’t matter as his general medications should knock him down all the same. And not when Sergio had noticed the strange pattern of his alarms: four sharp ones set with intervals of exactly two hours across eight hours of the night. In his attempts to understand what his brother is doing since he first noticed them, Sergio scrupulously spent an entire night outside Andrés’ bedroom, just at the turn of the hallway feet across from the kitchen, observing his watch. It was perhaps after the third alarm that Sergio, growing more confused by the minute, understood the pattern accompanying it. The distinct creak of the bathroom door inside Andrés’ bedroom, opening and closing.
He didn’t get a minute of sleep that night. Unable to think of anything other than his brother’s fear of his body’s betrayal in his sleep. He only surrendered to Raquel’s arms and reassuring whispers.
With caution, he speaks his mind. “There’s only one way out of this, Andrés.”
On the surface, Andrés’ reaction doesn’t change. His gaze remains in place, his expressions set in stone. Sergio, though, can read him blind.
“I have no other option.”
“Don’t-”
“It has been two weeks. they won’t release him. He has no chance.”
Andrés puts the mug down and regards him. “Do you know what your problem is, Sergio?” Andrés waits for a few heartbeats before answering his rhetorical question. “After all of these years, you still expect me to feel things—”his lips stretch into a small smile, vicious as a snake's”—that I simply don’t.”
“No, no.” He puts his hands up, lowers his head to the back, and closes his eyes. “I can imagine it all now. Vividly, as though it’s happening in front of me. The darkroom, the ice-cold water, the black bag around his head, the electric shocks.” His smile still upfront, he opens his eyes. “And do you know what it elicits in me, dear brother? Nothing.”
A furious shiver shackles his bones, but he doesn’t respond. Reminds himself that this is Andrés, this is how he lashes out. That he’s provoking him.
That he is just hurt.
So calmly and simply, Sergio cuts short the road Andrés is trying to take them down. Looking him in the eyes, he lays down his final card. “I won’t do it without your permission.”
Sergio knows he won. He knows Andrés wouldn’t say no. Less for Sergio himself, for whom Andrés had proven once and again that he won’t deny his requests and pleads anyway. Lesser for Aníbal, who he knows Andrés is truthful about his disregard for.
Andrés has just never been good at rejecting what he loves. One time is all he would be capable of.
His brother only laughs in response. As short as it is sharp. “My permission isn’t what you need. And it’s definitely not the one thing you can’t do this without.”
Before Sergio opens his mouth in response, Andrés signals he’s not done with a click of the tongue. Frost settling in his gaze. “But you already know that.”
A tired sigh escapes Sergio’s lungs. He reaches with two fingers beneath the glasses, rubbing his eyes. It’s as unpleasant for Sergio as it is for Andrés. For three years, neither of them have mentioned the man whose memory lays lodged between them like a knife between ribs. There were few unspeakable topics between him and his brother; Martín is at the summit of the short list.
But Sergio does what must be done. Always. “I know things didn’t end ideally between you two-”
“Oh, things ended better than ideally, little brother. They ended perfectly. And do you know why?”
Folding his hands beneath his chin in tired expectancy, Sergio lets Andrés speak.
“Because they ended.” His lips twitch with the stress he puts on the word. His features transforming beyond his will. He knows Andrés’ anger is warranted, that Sergio must be a selfish son of a bitch to stomp on the dream that once held both of the men captive, only to pull the stitches of the wound now.
He nods fervently. “And I understand, I do.” Andrés’ breath is coming in contained short bursts, the vein underneath his left eye lining the skin. “But-” He cuts himself off. He must look feverish, pleading with the words he can’t form because his mind is storming and his tongue isn’t quick enough to carry the words off “-they think that they can just do what they want, that they answer to no one, that they won’t pay for their crimes -I need to do it.”
Andrés’ expressions are slow to soften. He looks into the distance, mind miles away, rubs a finger against his lips. Then sighs when he looks at Sergio. And nods. Sergio can breathe a little easier. His mind already jumping to another unpleasant conversation awaiting him across the oceans.
--
The reunion isn’t one Andrés had ever hoped to see. In better words, he’d hoped he would never be seen by this reunion. He wasn’t there when Sergio collected them, but the euphoria of meeting again after three years still shimmers on their skin under the soft light.
Around the dinner table, the words rush out and tumble into one another. All eager to share, to show, to gloat, joke and laugh. It's a place Andrés has no place in. The group, the laughter, the couples, the children. He doesn't begrudge them their happiness. Of course not, this is beneath him. He's only weary, a traveler who'd trespassed for so long he can no longer sit around another fire and introduce himself anew and tell his story all over again. He doesn't belong here now. With the living. He's falling off the seams.
Neither is he fully with the dead yet.
He'd have never imagined himself here. He had every intention to suck every last ounce directly out of the marrow of life. But it seems so long ago now when he'd thought and said those words. An eternity away. And that illusion he’d once fed himself is now like scraped nail polish; neither here nor there, deformed.
They are different, it’s as clear as the sun. No resemblance can be detected between the files he and Sergio had flipped through and the men and women gleaming in front of him now; open shoulders, loud laughs, heads held high. Powerful. They are no longer the broken of the world who had nothing to lose; they are the broken who raised their heads from the rubble and beat the world back. His brother had changed their lives, had changed them, Andrés muses with pride.
Still, Andrés thinks, this is precisely the problem now. They are no longer the team that had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Not anymore.
It doesn’t seem to be a concern of Sergio’s now, so Andrés pushes the thought for later and watches them instead. It’s apparent how unsure they are around Andrés. Whether the memories he left them with are that unpleasant or their awkwardness stem from his current state, he can’t find it in himself to care either way.
He’s not left to their thoughts, however, as Nairobi shifts his attention to him while the others talk over each other.
“Got your vineyard, yet?” She smiles. Paradoxically, it feels genuine.
“Unfortunately not. I’ve been busy with other matters.”
She leans her elbows on the table, resting her chin on her folded hands. And raises a mocking eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Your day job is exhausting, eh?”
Andrés’ smile gives to a low laugh. And he’s prepared to reply when it’s cut through like a blade in the air. A grimace runs through his veins when he hears Helsinki does a humorous, horrible imitation of the Argentinean accent. Followed by howls of laughter across the table.
It breaks when the beast notices how Andrés is staring at him; a wave of sudden, irrational hatred taking hold of him and unmistakably showing on his face.
Nairobi is still laughing by his side, fixed gaze soft on the other man, and Andrés turns to her with a curious tilt. Feeling the weight of his eyes on her, she gives him a quick glance before looking away. Andrés nearly laughs. Oh, Nairobi.
Sergio coughs, bringing everyone’s attention back on himself. Then he releases the elephant out from the cage. Sweeping his gaze over the room, Andrés does find morbid pleasure in the breakage of the pleasantries, the little circle of joy they formed, imitating relatives coming together for Christmas. Let them show their actual faces.
“There were rules,” Nairobi hisses, her gaze a dagger towards Tokyo. It follows with everyone giving their piece. Oh, the terrible losses they’ve endured to become millionaires.
The table grows silent when Denver cracks open his heart, a father now himself. It’s true that one’s father returns to the blood when the son becomes a father himself; each reflects their own. Andrés can’t help but snicker. Especially when he remembers the deal he once made with Moscow, who’s now gone. And here Andrés is.
It breaks the spell, eyes whirl to him with disgust and Denver looks at him with so much fury Andrés is sure the young man was seconds away from hitting him. Then Sergio starts. Andrés huffs even before the words depart Sergio’s mouth. Not in disbelief of the authenticity of the words. No, Sergio has the tremendous ability to use the truth and only the truth to get exactly what he wants.
Beginning his tirade, ever the professor, he teaches everyone a lesson about family, loyalty, and mistakes. His voice cracks when his series of listed wrongdoings reach Nairobi’s and the price that was almost paid for it.
Andrés finds himself averting his brother’s gaze. He’s not sure whether the weight his voice is carrying is meant to spill the truth he’d never utter to Andrés’ face; that maybe it would have been better if the mistake was carried to its full potential. It decisively doesn’t deserve its place on the list, is what Andrés thinks.
The only true mistake is that he wasn’t left to finish what should have happened.
Now the months have stretched, agonizingly, to years. His dignity stretched thin with it. The painful, yet curt goodbye stretched to a silent prayer for God’s mercy to come down upon his older brother once and for all.
--
Unable to sleep this night, restless, he goes out onto the porch with a glass of wine. It’s nearly morning and the sky is the color of bruised skin, blotched blue and violet.
Underneath it, by the shore, are standing Sergio and Tokyo. His vision could barely make their blurred figures, but they appear done with their little talk when his brother turns and walks. With a curt nod towards Andrés, he goes inside to his sleeping woman.
Tokyo isn’t too quick to follow, lingering ahead of Andrés with a smug, half-formed smirk. Leaning on one leg, exposed tanned thigh, she clicks her tongue against her teeth, “Oh, how the mighty have fallen, your fate is catching up with you, I see.”
Andrés raises his chin and gives her a tight smile.
She furrows her brows in mock sympathy, “What is it, no use of your precious medicine now? Maybe I should have destroyed it all after all.”
He snickers in response. “Fate catches up with everyone, eventually, dear Tokyo. Your dearest innocent boy was always going to meet his death because of you, for example, that’s his fate.” He turns his lips downward in a deriding pout and sighs. “It would have been a mercy had I killed him that day. But this is better, it’ll teach him; there’s always betrayal in love.”
She hides the quiver on her lips by rushing over to him. She hovers over him with anger seeping out of her pores. Andrés only tilts his head backward and smiles. “Listen here you piece of shit, we’re getting him out and if you try to fuck this up, it won’t be Russian Roulette this time, it’ll be a direct bullet between the eyes. And I assure you, my hands won’t shake.”
“And do you know whose plan is meant to get him out? Has my dear brother told you?”
“I don’t give a shit,” she spits, “El professor is the one who will do it, and we’re with him, with or without your involvement.” Her lips split into a smirk again as she relaxes a little, “you should be the one thanking me, eh? I’ll be the one actually performing your heist.” Her voice lowers. “Maybe you’ll get to watch it on television.”
Andrés laughs. Howls, more likely. “Do you think you’ll be his second-in-command inside?” He doesn’t stop laughing. “Por favor!”
It stops her for a moment. “Who else?” She looks him up and down, from head to toe, and jeers, “you?”
“Oh, Tokyo." He relaxes against the seat rest, whirling his wine. “You’re in for a surprise.”
--
Andrés doesn’t know if he would have accompanied Sergio to the marvelous city if he could. A thought that doesn’t have a single pleasant component to it. He can’t ponder his ability or lack thereof, he knows all there is to it. One trip to Tuscany is already too much for his body, the only comfort is he’s sure it’s not a round trip. And Andrés knows the only reason Sergio didn’t suggest he remains with the child and the demented old woman isn’t to avoid wounding his pride; Sergio could be cruelly blunt when needed, or because Andrés is essential to the plan; Sergio is well aware there’s nothing Andrés knows that he and Martín don’t, and times better than him. No, the one and single reason is Sergio fears his brother might not have another two or three months. He’s postponing goodbye is all there is.
And he doesn’t ponder his imaginable actions in a phantom world where he can do whatever he wants to. Because it’s a phantom world. Because even imagination is too tiring for his brain. And the concept of doing what he wants to do is too far and too slippery for his blurring eyes and trembling hands to grasp.
As the hours pass before Martín’s arrival—because he will arrive, Andrés doesn’t wonder for a second if Martín would say no; he’d always loved this plan too much for his own good—he gets increasingly restless. Raging thoughts in a brain too exhausted to even finish one; his instinct orders him to run, to hide away, to not let Martín see him like this. And he realizes that this is how Martín will last see him; this will forever be the memory engraved in the mind of the man who once loved him most, overruling all the others. No power. No beauty.
Scraggy skin covering a mind too worn-out to do anything but succumb to its own bitterness. Undignified, disgusting.
--
Unlike him, Martín looks nearly the same. Just less. He seems the same; same imperious step, same beauty. But carrying a weariness and tiredness that were once foreign to his infinite vibrancy, which now themselves look worn-out, fitting on his skin like an old kitchen rag on a grandmother’s kitchen tiles. As though he had worn this tiredness and weariness for years.
Andrés finds it ironic, that even now, disconnected as they are, it seems like everything he feels is echoed in Martín across the oceans, a neverending loop that takes from one and pours into the other.
Even when he left him, he didn’t feel his own heartbreak, not really; incessantly, he felt Martín’s reverberating in his own body. His, underneath it, was more of a numb pain, like skin under arctic cold.
(An apt metaphor, he thinks, he was never going to die in a blaze, only freezing himself and everyone around him to death with his cold, impenetrable skin)
Once again, Martín remains unpredictable even to him.
Andrés was almost entirely sure of the reaction he’s going to receive. Anger, some rightful schadenfreude, indifference.
To his dismay, it’s not. Perhaps Andrés truly looks worse than he had imagined, perhaps his brother had already let it slip how bad Andrés’ current state it before they arrived. The first reaction he warrants from Martín when the latter first lays eyes on him is a hitched breath and an ‘Andrés’ so soft it’s merely a movement of lips.
Nothing but pity.
It’s the worst reaction Andrés could have possibly imagined. One that makes him storm out of the chapel in an unwarranted spread of anger.
--
He has to put on the ventilator to fall asleep that night.
The one Sergio got for him. That has stayed by his bed on the island for weeks, unused. His brother has given it to him, naturally, when Andrés had started having more and more shortages of breaths. At least use it during the night, he had said. But Andrés hadn't. Because he knew. He knew once his body can't even intake oxygen on its own, it's over. Then it'll be diapers and a wheelchair. A feeding spoon and other hands bathing him. A burden and a shame will color the remaining of the identity he built with sweat and blood.
Now, he needs it. But nothing helps, not it, not the pain killers and the sleeping pills. All they do is just increase the hazy fog that overwhelms his uncontrollable thoughts. His uncontrollable rage, at Martín, at Sergio, at Nairobi. At Tokyo. At his mother and his body.
He was never supposed to see him again. Never.
--
It’s rather late in the night. Cold, too. The monastery had always been too cold. Too good for him then that his faithful companion still does his job of warming him most ardently. He fixes himself a glass of Johhny Walker’s and goes into the courtyard. The table is still clattered with their late dinner, but there isn’t even a chirping remaining. Martín takes his glass and settles on the chaise lounge. He drinks alone in the comfort of darkness for a while.
Then hears footsteps, and turns to see Sergio, with a coat over his pajamas. Looking restless, lost.
Martín raises his glass and yells at him. “Join me?”
Sergio’s shoulders lower with a sigh, and he walks the few feet between them. He tightens the coat around his torso as he takes the seat across from Martín. Picking up a left glass from the table, Martín grabs the bottle he kept by the lounge’s foot (he didn’t want anyone to see him with a glass and a whole bottle out there. But he brought it. Just in case) and poured him a glass. Then lights a cigarette.
Martín crosses one leg over the other, and rubbing his ankle, leans back as he watches Sergio. He rounds his glass like a child playing with his food. He looks tired. Grief-stricken.
The only thing worse than grief is premature grief, Andrés would say. Or said. Martín doesn’t know anymore, doesn’t know where Andrés’ thoughts end in his mind and his begin. Can’t tell the difference between what was said or can be said.
He takes a gulp of his drink. He shouldn’t have come here. It’s unfair. In its purest, simplest forms, it’s unfair. Martín is used to unfairness, he doesn’t blame life for what it is. But being deprived of him for five years, five years, only to be invited back to watch him die… is a hell Martín doesn’t know what he has done to deserve. To be this helpless in front of it, to have to face his lack of power like this. Not even the gold is worth this.
“Are you sure there-”
Sergio cuts his question short. “Yes. There is nothing out there, Martín.” He takes a shaky breath. “I’ve forced him into two experimental treatments, nothing worked, nothing- he just kept getting worse and worse-” a soft reverberation goes through his body. Martín doesn’t think it’s the cold.
He puts his glass down in a second and puts off his cigarette with it. Then reaches across the table, bringing himself to the verge of his seat. And grabs Sergio’s face between his palms. “It’s going to be alright, hm? He’ll be just fine.” Martín says with as much intensity as he knows his words are false. It won’t be okay, Andrés is on a slide that’s only going down, he’s dying. And there’s nothing that can save him. And Martín wonders how he even breathes and walks the earth with that knowledge tearing his insides with every passing second.
Marvelously, it’s easier now to say it, with Sergio’s face between his palms, his unshed tears reflecting the boyish youth Martín had once known in him. He says it with the confidence of parents sending their children to sleep with a bedtime story in a building that’s burning down, beyond saving. He says it, because what else?
“Hm, Sergito?”
A smile breaks through the tears, and Martín pulls him in his arms. Slowly, Sergio reaches up to clutch Martín’s back just the same. It flashes through Martín’s mind like lightning that he had lived with this—had witnessed it for himself—for three years, alone. Alone in the never-ending pain of loving and losing Andrés. And he only holds him tighter. Soothing down his hair as reassuring nothings roll off his tongue, barely keeping away his own breakdown.
He pulls with a clap left on Sergio’s back, a ridiculous little laugh between them. Like Rain after sandstorms, washing everything new.
“You’ve got a woman for yourself now, I can’t believe it!”
Sergio chuckles shyly. “Don’t.”
“You’re quite a sneaky bastard, aren’t you? All of those years, convinced us you had no moves to save your life, and then went and landed yourself an inspectora.”
“Ex-inspectora, por favor,” Lisbon’s voice comes. Sergio quickly wipes the tears off his face with the back of his hand and turns to her with a smile. She reaches their little table and stands by Sergio, a gentle hand on his shoulder. With worrisome brows, she softly speaks to him, “You weren’t in bed.”
“Join us, Lisbon.” Martín shakes the bottle, patting the seat beside him with the other hand.
She smiles. “Why not!” Then takes the bottle, and swigs in her mouth directly. Earning an impressed laugh from Martín. Then sits beside him, relaxing back.
Martín slides her his pack and she takes out a cigarette. Pinching it between her lips, they all have a pleasant moment of silence. Raquel then shifts her weight, strands her head on one hand, her elbow leaning on the headrest, and waves away the smoke. “You’ve really come up with this whole plan yourself?”
“Don’t encourage him, please,” Sergio jokes. “He’s arrogant enough as it is.”
Martín laughs and puts down his drink, raising up his hands. “Lisbon, Lisbon, be fair. Don’t vote for him just because he’s your boyfriend.” He raises a finger. “In your honest opinion, which is the better plan?”
“Palermo,” Sergio warns, trying to keep a strict voice. But then gives away when he smiles and goes, “it’s not about the grandeur, mine was just way more precise, there was very little place for any flaws-”
“Sorry, cariño,” Raquel cuts him, “but it is about the grandeur. Palermo’s wins.”
Martín lets out a loud Ha in Sergio’s face and wiggles his eyebrows. Then high fives Raquel.
“She’s a romantic like us, Sergio, get out of here.” He turns to Raquel. “He’s too boring for you, this fucker.”
“Are you trying to break up my house now?” Sergio jokes.
“Hey! Fair is fair.” Sergio’s face darkens slightly at the words. Martín doesn’t want to tense the atmosphere up so he reaches up and ruffles his hair, I’m joking, it says.
“You haven’t answered my question,” Raquel urges. Of course, she wants the mechanics behind the plan.
“Not exactly,” Martín answers, “Berlin and I planned it together.”
“Are you sure? I asked him once to help with Paula’s homework and he told her maths is free to interpretation. I didn’t ask him again, obviously.”
Martín laughs. God, he had missed him. “The technicalities and the numbers are out of his field, but he’s…he’s brilliant, unabashed in his ideas, limitless as a child’s, nothing is impossible to him.” The word is bitter on his tongue but he pushes through. “He thinks of things that would never cross anyone else’s mind, doesn’t concern himself or stop in the way of any idea just because it might not be realistic. He lets it through, only after it do we bring it to reality with numbers, maths, and physics. Science and art working intertwined as they had in the Golden Age.”
Raquel nods thoughtfully. Sergio only softly smiles. “It’s a brilliant plan,” she comments. Then her eyes glint mischievously and Martín knows he likes her. “It’s going to kill them.”
Martín has put the pieces of the puzzle together to figure out that the policia didn’t leave her with the best memories. He’s more than happy with that drive. This plan’s fuel is passion, in any form. Hatred as well as love, anger as much as desire.
“Cheers to that.” Martín grins, raising his glass. Then clinks it against Sergio’s and Raquel’s bottle.
Sergio gulps down the remaining of his glass and bids him goodnight. He has a silent conversion with Raquel where she apparently tells him she’s staying. Then he kisses her and goes inside, drooping eyes.
"You sure did pick the winning side," Martín comments as they watch Sergio go.
She waits until he’s out of eyesight, and something seems to shift around her. “I do hope so.”
There's something following this. So Martín waits.
"Are you really sure, Palermo? That it's going to work?" She takes a pause. "That we won't all end in bags. Or behind prison bars?"
Ah, late nights tipsy doubts!
Martín isn't surprised by her questioning. Even with her confidence and intelligence in class itself, it's only natural to doubt it (Even Andrés had rejected it before).
"Are you asking whether by bringing home another child, yours will lose her own? Or you still think the police can take us down?"
"I'm asking whether I can trust you. Inside. I've seen Berlin inside the mint-"
"The plan always comes first," Martín starts, "No one dies under my command. But once we're inside, anything, anything, can happen. I can't promise that I'd sabotage the plan to save anyone. But I can promise that I've lived and breathed this dream for more than 5 years, I know it inside out, and I trust it with all our lives. I can promise that if you follow it as it is, nothing wrong will happen. Outside as inside.”
She’s still looking at him. Serious.
“The plan, Raquel, is our ark. We’ll only be saved at the end if we follow it. Loyally.”
She huffs up a laugh. "I appreciate the honesty, at least."
“Now my turn,” Martín says.
“Your turn?”
“You’ve shed your title for a city name, a beautiful gesture, don’t get me wrong. But I’m not fooled with it, Lisbon, no one can shed away complete decades of their lives, whole parts of their being like that. Not this easily.”
He’s provoking her, he knows. And it gets the desired effect. Her face is immediately as red as a piece of fresh meat, furious. And she’s about to start a tirade when Martín cuts her, he doesn’t need to hear all the horrible things they did to her honor, or how deceived she was by their wrongdoings. He knows enough as it is.
“Don’t get me wrong, your history is just a double-edged sword, you understand.” She stares at him but it’s more of a glare. “On the one hand—”he opens one palm“—it’s a great bonus. Sergio and I can theorize about them all we want, and trust me, we’re good. We’ve studied them like lab animals, but theory is never as good as reality. You know them much more intimately, intuitively. You know them personally. And it is a weapon we intend to use.”
She raises her chin. Looks like a soldier who can’t wait to bear his arms and rush to battle.
Martín opens the other palm. “But on the other hand, dear Raquel, It’s normal to still have loyalty for them-”
“I have no loyalty to them,” Raquel defends, her face a study in fury.
Martín sucks through his teeth, nods. He sets his glass down and shifts closer to her. “Okay, and I’m willing to believe you. But have no illusions, hermanita, just because we’re the winning side doesn’t mean we’re the right one. This is no moral fight. Sergio is no Robin Hood. This isn’t a fight between Good and Evil.”
She hesitates at this. Opens her mouth only to close it again.
Martín continues. “Once inside, this could get very, very ugly. It won’t be clear anymore who’s right and who’s wrong. And the truth is, there will be no right parties. I had this plan when Rio was still going to middle school, and it’s still the same one! No one is forcing our hand to do this, just as no one is forcing their hand to torture kids. When this starts, we can’t have you question that you’ve chosen the wrong side, that it turns out el professor is the bad one.”
“What is that supposed to mean, Palermo?” She snips. “Speak your mind.”
“You have been swayed before.”
“And what, you think I’m a rat now? Or worse, an indecisive girl?”
“No, I don’t,” Martín answers earnestly. He takes a deep breath. “I’m not accusing you of anything. But…el professor-Sergio, I know him, I know him very, very well. He’s as delusional as his brother when it fits him, he doesn’t accept the entirety of his nature, so he makes up those half-lies, but the truth is, at the end of the day, he’s a ruthless, egotistical, control-obsessed man, and if you haven’t seen that already, then you’ll see it when you’re with him outside. And I need to know that you accept this now.” His voice softens. “I need to know that I can depend on you no matter what happens inside or outside. This plan, Raquel, is my life. It’s everything. I need to know if I can trust you with it.”
Raquel seems a strange mix of furious and attentive. She’s mature enough to understand Martín isn’t trying to insult her, at least. Finally, she nods, solemnly.
“I promise,” she says, weighty, “I’m not backing down. Never.”
Martín extends his hand. "To not backing down, then.”
--
Martín leaves him alone for the most part. Out of pride, possibly. Out of blame and anger, hopefully. The others are wary around him. Martín still has his edge, and it makes even the crudest of criminals around him uncomfortable. But it’s not long before his humor and his genius confuse them, then win them over. Most of them, at least. The fairer kind between them despises Martín as much as they had once despised Andrés.
He clashes with Tokyo at every turn. Andrés suspects both draw some morbid pleasure from it. Two stray cats clawing at each other’s throats for the hell of it. Watching him being so clearly himself unzips in Andrés such longness that it feels he’s chocking with it.
Nairobi is the subtler of the two. Andrés suspects it has a thing or two to do with the looks Helsinki throws Martín’s way when he thinks no one is looking, the disregarding flirtations Martín responds with.
Or it could be Martín being, in her words, a sexist pig. Andrés wouldn’t know.
“Don’t let him get the better of you,” he humors once, “it will only make him get worse.” It’s complete dissonance to imitate the normalcy that was once so theirs, to joke with him, about him. But the others already know him and Martín shared a long friendship, had their own little banda, as they all assume the two of them plus Jakov and Santiago were. They’ll think he has something to hide if he doesn’t speak about him, if the fondness and the pain and the longness tie his tongue in knots, they’ll probe and think Andrés is hurt, broken. So he doesn’t. He speaks of him as any old friends do.
Nairobi huffs across from him. “I didn’t know he can get worse than this. What an asshole.”
Andrés chuckles.
She shakes her head, as though puzzled and grabbling with an equation. “He’s like a worse version of you.”
He laughs, true and airy. “I wasn’t aware there’s a worse version of me. I’d have thought I reached the end of the spectrum for you.”
She throws him a loaded glance before her lips crack into a smile. “I wasn’t either. That’s the weird part.” At this, they both laugh.
At the other end of the courtyard, Martín and Santiago are standing with Raquel, who’s laughing at something Santiago is narrating. Martín is too, hands on his hips, leaning against the bark of a tree. Andrés swallows and returns his focus to Nairobi when she speaks.
“He’s going to get all of us killed inside with his bigotry and arrogance.”
Andrés shakes his head. “Palermo is brilliant. You’ll come to learn that his arrogance is for due reason.” He pauses. “You trusted me inside the mint, after everything you trusted me to get you out alive.” Nairobi’s eyes warm at the memory. Which is not an easy thing for Andrés to evoke, but any seeds of rebellion need to be stumped now. By any means. “So believe me in this, Martín is times more trustworthy than I am.”
She sighs in defeat but says no more. Her gaze imitates his to the little group.
“I hear you’re still playing hard to get with my dear friend, Bogota,” he teases, “He’s a true gentleman, a real romantic.”
“Yeah, his seven kids told me.”
Andrés laughs in response.
“You’ve wanted one, now you can have seven and a couple more of your own, what’s there to complain about?”
“Am I hallucinating or are you setting me up with your friend?”
“Us romantics stick together, Nairobi. We have a sacred bond.”
She huffs up a smile and gets up from their small table. Bidding him goodnight. There’s something uneasy about her with him. As if suddenly at loss with how to act. Indecisive in how she feels.
Inadvertently, his gaze is drawn back to Martín, who is suddenly standing still, staring at Andrés across the distance like a ghost.
Andrés leaves for bed.
--
Irrationally, Andrés finds himself the one trying to provoke him. Unintentionally even. He catches himself trying to bother him at every turn. If only because there’s nothing else for him to do. He can’t try and act like everything is normal between them. He can’t apologize because he doesn’t regret what he’s done. He can’t be selfish with him now, ask him to be with him for his last days, just because he’s dying and the only thing he wants in life now is to taste him once more. He can’t do this. But he can’t pretend he’s not there either. Martín’s presence isn’t one any person can ignore, let alone Andrés.
Perhaps because he’s in the know, or perhaps because he’s treating Andrés like an old man to be handled like a child, Martín doesn’t respond to it. More than anyone, Andrés knows how hard it is for Martín to resist any provocation.
So he keeps going with a strange, primtive urge until it happens. And it does. Eventually. Martín breaks.
Andrés had missed the last few classes. A now-familiar few bad days in a row where he’s forced to stick to his bed. Sergio still frets over it, but not so much as the first few times it had happened. By now, both now to just wait it out.
Martín, ever the civil, thinks to visit Andrés in his room by the night of the third day. Sinking in fatigue, in delirious pain, Andrés meets him with what’s now expected from him. Utter cruelty he has no right to. He can’t stand him, his polite tone, his unsaid words, his well-hidden anger.
Andrés can’t do this anymore. Can’t accept this. Can’t pretend. All the profanities, the vulgarities, and the desperation he had suppressed his entire life seep out of him now; bitterness pouring from his veins like blood, no pressuring cloth or hand can hide the stark color of a life unlived.
The plan-the plan, he admits is happy to see it come back to life in his lifetime, to witness it once again, but it doesn’t counter the mockery he feels at its hand, by the entire situation. To have it hanging over his head like that, his but not his. They will enter the bank, but he'll be confined to his bed instead. A spectator just like the thousands and millions of people who would be watching. Nothing more.
And Martín. His soulmate who can’t even look at him anymore.
So all he does is poke at the wound.
He doesn’t know which comment or remark fills Martín’s eyes with their natural red rage, returns the venom to his tongue. Then Martín’s face is glowing with fury inches from Andrés. And Andrés’ only thought is this is the first time he sees Martín truly alive again since they’ve returned to the monastery.
“All of this is your fault. Yours. I never, never, asked anything of you, I didn’t tell you to confess or to kiss me or to leave, I would have never asked.” His chest is rising and falling at a furious pace. “You’re dying, alone. Because of you. Our plan is in the hand of destructive amateurs. Because of you. I can’t wait to get out of here, to not see your fucking face again, hijo de puta.” He pauses, breath coming hard. “You deserve all of this fucking suffering.”
Andrés’ only response is to grin in his face. And it has the desired effect; Martín’s initial reaction of horror at the words that slipped his mouth retreats. He storms out instead.
Then at the door, he turns with malice and gives his final biting lash. The one meant to hurt and to only hurt. “I only feel sorry for you.”
Despite knowing that Martín is doing it intentionally, it leaves Andrés in an indescribable state.
He wanted him to do this. He wanted him to give it his best. He wanted him to hurt him in turn. But he’s still angry all the same. The words eat at his mind.
In spite of all of this, Martín is still the better man.
For the better half of the night, he can be heard at his doorstep, the distinguished pacing of his feet outside his room. Andrés knows him so well he knows he’s hovering between his apologies. No matter what Andrés had ever done to him, Martín could never return it in its full effect. Always, always, returning to take it back, to reassure and give his love freely, asking for nothing in return.
Not this time. Andrés won’t take anything from him anymore.
He locks his door. And goes to sleep.
--
Sergio gives them lunch break when it’s apparent no one is listening anymore. Himself, he walks the dim hallways to check on his brother. Every time he falls in a state like this, it paralyzes Sergio, never knowing whether he’d wake up from it or it would be the final fall. In the dark as much as a child.
He should check on Martín after too. Who disregarded class despite Sergio reminding him that he’s especially needed the night before.
Giving a curtsy knock, he pushes open the door. Then is momentarily caught in his tracks.
Martín is setting on the bed. And Andrés is standing over him, still sickly in appearance. Sergio wonders if he interrupted a bad moment, the atmosphere is tense and rancid, not very different from it had been between them over the past weeks. But now they both look like they cut words short when he entered. Agitated. Andrés has a hand on his hip, his other caught waving in mid-air.
“Are you okay?” Sergio asks him. Because this is what he’s here for. (Making sure his brother still woke up in the morning.)
Ludicurosily, as arrogantly as he’s always been, Martín grins and answers instead. “Perfect, hermanito.”
Sergio only tilts his head at him.
“He’s way better today,” Martín adds, sending Andrés a pleasant, gritted smile, “aren’t you, Andrés?”
Andrés nods, polishing a smile for Sergio. He really doesn’t look that alright. He’d thought he could count on Martín to not go along with his brother’s bullshit regarding his health. But judging from the way both have been acting, they’re still the five-year-olds they’ve always been.
But maybe Martín is the one smarter than him this time. Nothing can be done, all three know. Maybe the best course of action is humoring Andrés, instead of reminding him of his dooming death every passing second. He can’t help himself, though, when he takes a light sprint towards his brother, reaching to touch his forehead with the back of his hand. “Your temperature is still high. You can take the day off, Andrés, really.”
Andrés holds his face between his palms, smiling unnaturally. “I’m perfectly fine, Sergito-” he stops abruptly before continuing, his smile rising up again. “We’ll be right after you.”
He’s a little stunned by the very strange atmosphere. But he nods anyway.
But just when he’s turning to close the door behind himself, he throws them one last glance. And it makes him stop in his tracks.
Andrés’ hands are sightly trembling, but that’s not the strange thing, the time between dosages has been lessening and lessening for the past months, and frequently, Andrés would find his muscles giving away shortly before the next dosage. What’s strange is that he’s watching his own hands, open palms in front of him with bewilderment. As though he’s never seen it before. Then he mutters, “La concha de tu madre.”