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Alejandro groans as he unsticks himself from the too-small plastic chair he had folded himself into, ignoring the pale flash of paperwork in front of him in favour of pressing his hands into the small of his back and trying to rearrange his spine through sheer will alone. He’d never pictured himself as someone who would grow old, his sort of life didn’t lend itself easily to grey hair and creaking knees but apparently his body hadn’t received that memo. He’s not that much older than the men he leads but he feels it. At least, Rodolfo wore his age gracefully.
Glancing over at his second-in-command, Alejandro drinks in the sight of him like communion wine, a single dose that should hopefully linger over his tongue for a time, a blessing he isn’t sure that he deserves. Rudy’s head is bowed over the remnants of his paperwork, his pen never ceasing in it’s graceful dance over his work, and there are the beginnings of faint lines around his eyes, a few starting streaks of silver in his hair. He’s dressed casually enough, as Alejandro is, his shirt still tucked into his fatigues and his jacket long since discarded. As if sensing Alejandro’s gaze, Rudy looks up, his habitual smile only a moment behind and his eyes crease along the same folds that Alejandro has just noticed.
“Any plans for tonight, hermano?”
Rudy’s mouth twists as he thinks and Alejandro knows the look only too well, some pretty platitude intended to cover for the fact that Rudy is going to be staying on the base, and continues before Rudy needs to lie. “I’ll cover for you with the men. There was mention of going to a few places and I am already exhausted by it.”
Rudy laughs, ducking his head to press his hand to his mouth, the same hand that he’s still clutching the pen in, so Alejandro can still make out the sharp curve of his amusement. “You sound like your Mama, Ale, already complaining about your busy social life.”
“She has been nothing but right so far,” Alejandro tries, knowing he’s already lost this argument and any other where his mother is concerned. Her single hold-out prediction, made with the same solemnity that she approaches her prayers in church and the delicate waver of a candleflame in a window, is about Rudy and his future braided with Alejandro’s in one way or another. She hadn’t elaborated beyond that, shooing Alejandro away the last time he had tried to broach the topic with her, but the knowledge is a heavy one, something he can set his teeth to until they chip and are blunted into passable platonic friendship. He loves Rudy with every broken piece of his being, and Rudy deserves everything that Alejandro can give him and more. He can do this small kindness for him, and Alejandro can keep his feelings quiet, gentle, unspoken. It’s best for them both this way.
Rudy twirls the pen around his fingers, the motion practiced and fluid. Alejandro is used to seeing him flip a butterfly knife around his fingers, the flash of metal captivating and hallowing all at once, just another way that his Rudy is perfectly made in every way. “I will have to call her later this week to say hi. It’s been a while since I’ve spoken to her.”
“She asks after you more than she does me.” Alejandro carefully pushes himself upright, breathing out the groan that he catches behind his teeth. He presses his hands against the small of his back, leaning backwards against his hold with a sigh. He’d known about the violence and the politics but no-one had warned him about the endless piles of paperwork and reports that need to be filed out in triplicate for absolutely no reason other than to make busy work for people. Rudy’s gaze on him is heady, far more effective than any drink Alejandro will knock back tonight in hopes of diluting the memory of Rudy’s hand layered over his thigh from their last mission, the careful line of heat against his side as they huddled together behind a makeshift barrier while they waited for an evac. Rudy’s other arm had been thrown across Alejandro’s shoulders, his hand cradling the side of his head to try and keep some of the dust from covering him completely. When they’d returned, Alejandro could make out Rudy’s outline on his skin.
Rudy nods, the pen held suspended over the backs of his fingers. “Have a good time out, Ale. Enjoy your bars.”
Alejandro snaps his fingers and Rudy starts, the pen clattering onto the desk. He grabs for it before Rudy can, twisting it around his fingers before tapping the still warm plastic against his cheek as he gazes down at Rudy. There’s a splash of colour across his cheeks, something that Alejandro would describe a pout over Rudy’s mouth while Rudy would inform him that it’s a scowl and that he needs his eyes checking. “We will go out next week. Just the two of us. Si ?”
“Give me my pen back, Ale.”
The pen is nothing special, black ink, a slightly chewed lid, and the barrel still holds the sticky warmth of Rodolfo’s touch. Alejandro holds it up to the light, making a show of considering it. “Just one little word from you, Rudy. Just one.”
“Alejandro.”
“Close, Rodolfo. So very close.” Alejandro makes to tuck the pen into his pocket and Rudy’s eyes follow the gesture. It reminds him of one of the cats that roams around the base, a solid striped tabby that seems to be mostly shadow where it sprawls in the best patches of sunlight or prowls across the grass, its tail twitching like a question, ears pricked forwards. He wonders if Rodolfo would pounce the same way, peeling back his professionalism that he shrugs on like a jacket and buttons up to his neck. It had been too long since they’d sparred together, an unconscious choice on Alejandro’s part, a gentle drift that he hadn’t realised was happening until he looked back at Rudy and noticed the space between them.
He opens his mouth to ask, the question half-formed the moment he had thought it, when Rudy strikes. His hand darts out, Alejandro having an instant flash of danger begin to spark through his chest, the same jerk in the pit of his stomach, the same spark of knowledge he was never meant to hold that dying would feel something like this, and Rudy flips his pen over his fingers, gathering his papers back into order.
“I won’t be picking anyone up tonight, Ale, I mean it. You’ll have to make your own way back.”
Alejandro grins down at Rudy and is met with a raised eyebrow and a steady gaze.
“Ale, I’m being serious.”
“I understand.” Alejandro reaches over and slides one of the sheets back out of alignment, studying the neat block capitals of Rudy’s handwriting, the shape more familiar than his own. He keeps his gaze lowered, trying to coax his heart back into a steady rhythm through sheer force of will. The moment is already a memory, and it’s fading just like one, the edges turning grey and curling in, the feelings flattening into words rather than the sensation, the burst of forbidden fruit on his tongue. He glances over at Rudy and is met with a steady gaze and a raised eyebrow, eternally patient and more than Alejandro deserved with his bad temper and his snap judgement.
Although, befriending Rudy had been catalysed by every one of his poorer qualities that had sent him scowling towards the shade of an alleyway instead of home and flopping down next to Rodolfo, all bruised knees and scuffed elbows, with paint smears on his hands and secrets woven into his laugh.
“It will be fine. We will all be fine.” Alejandro presses his hand to his heart, feeling it skip a beat when Rudy smiles up at him. He’s doomed, doomed, doomed, and it isn’t an ending he would have thought possible, but he can’t imagine anything else. He wouldn’t drag Rudy down with him. “I promise.”
⁂
This is not how Alejandro thought that his night would be going. He leans further onto the bar next to him, ignoring the growing ring of condensation flooding the sticky surface around the bottom of his glass, and peers down the line of faces lined up further down. At the far end of the bar, he can make out one of the newer recruits, the blush that had stained his face when he had mentioned, speaking strictly to the table top at the last bar they had crowded into, about a new gay bar that had opened up a few streets over. There’d been a moment when he glanced up at Alejandro, a twitching rabbit caught in a set of headlights, and Alejandro had thought about Rudy. They hadn’t spoken about things like that, both stepping around the subject like it’s a minefield and a wrong move would take them both out in a single blistering argument, but times are changing and Alejandro would drag any protestors along by their ears if he has to and shoot them if he cannot. These men are his men, their men, and if this helps one them, then it would help them all in the end. It’s only fair.
Alejandro isn’t looking for one face in particular. He isn’t.
Rodolfo isn’t even here, he’s back on base, he’s on the dancefloor.
Alejandro blinks, turning back to the bar. There’s a mirror behind it, fragmented amongst the industrial shelves lined with bottles, and the surface is already pitted with age but Alejandro has scouted out conditions with worse. At least no-one was actively trying to shoot him here.
Rodolfo is beautiful.
He’s changed since Alejandro last saw him, his usual dark shirt and fatigues exchanged for a tight pair of leather trousers — Alejandro mouths a prayer, unsure if he’s asking for forgiveness for his multitude of sins or as thanks for the blessing in front of him — and a mesh shirt. The rash of bruises over Rodolfo’s shoulder have healed to mottled purple, near enough healing, and it only adds to the allure with the pitted scars over his shoulders. He’s swaying in time to the music, a bottle held in one hand with his thumb pressed over the mouth of it. As Alejandro watches, a man steps forward. He cannot make out the man’s expression, a dark patch on the mirror obscuring him as well as a hiss of static on a security camera, but he knows the way the man’s fingers flex, near clawlike before they forcibly relax into something closer to reverent. He could relate.
He’s not jealous.
He’s not.
Alejandro drains the last of his drink and rises to his feet. He’ll make his own way back to base after letting the men know where he’s going. He doesn’t want to make Rodolfo unhappy by being here. Rudy deserves every sweet and pleasurable thing he can get, and more than Alejandro could ever give him. He can cradle his breaking heart in private.
He doesn’t look back.