Chapter Text
14 de mayo
¡Es hoy!
I never thought I’d be so excited to be back at an airport; six years ago the sight of a plane would have made me sick (the turbulence nearly did). But since the four of us made the choice, everything’s different. I remember doodling the people around me, wondering what lives they led – if they had important meetings, holidays, or a family to get back to. Maybe I should doodle León; he’s at the kiosk right now, paying a stupid amount of money for two coffees. He’s just pointed to the medialunas on the pastry display and mouthed “¿Quieres una?” at me. Now he’s coming over with a to-go cup of coffee in each hand, the messenger bag that I’ve told him to throw away over his shoulder, a suitcase pulled by the crook of his elbow, and a pastry bag dangling from his mouth. Dad, I love him.
¡VAMOS A ESPAÑA !
Violetta closed her journal and smiled at León shuffling over like a pack horse.
“Mi amor,” he said through clenched teeth as he passed her the coffee, and promptly dropped the pastry bag into her open hand.
“I’ve still not heard from Fran or Diego,” she started, knitting her brows, and rapidly scrolling through her phone as she took a hasty bite of her medialuna.
“Francesca probably wanted to take three suitcases” León replied, flopping down onto the sofa next to her, and heaving his messenger bag off. Violetta held out her pastry to León and he took a bite, grumbling as the pastry flakes went everywhere.
“Yeah, and Diego probably wanted to take his electric guitar” Violetta countered; León considered this and nodded in agreement, still chewing.
Violetta was chewing rather furiously by comparison, punctuating each swallow with a heavy sigh. León frowned a little at this burst of nervousness and leaned over, sticking his head in her lap and looking up at her. He reached up and tucked the front two pieces of her hair behind her ears. "Hey. Tell me."
Violetta's face relaxed a little. "I just need everything to go perfectly this time. We've all been so busy with recording and touring and this is the first opportunity we've all had to redo this trip, we've wanted to do it for years and now it's finally here I don't know what I'll do if something goes wrong or we argue with each other."
León stroked her hair a little (which was a bit of a task considering his current position), and nodded as she rambled, letting her get it all out. "You've planned everything. Nothing serious will go wrong — if it does you'll have all of us here to help you get through it. You're not alone, we're going to have a great time together, I promise. Hug? And then a bit more of your pastry?"
Violetta nodded and smiled, reaching sort of awkwardly to hug him and laughing when her hair got in his mouth and he started sputtering.
There was a sudden commotion coming from the duty-free shop. León and Violetta, mouths full of pastry again, watched as Diego and Francesca raced through the aisle, trying and failing to avoid the employees spritzing them with perfume samples. Francesca reached them first – Diego had tripped; in his moment of weakness, he’d gotten a face full of Marc Jacobs, and was then collared by a teenage boy holding a pen and paper.
“Are we-” Francesca panted, collapsing into Violetta’s arms “-late?”
León shook his head, “Nah, we’ve still got about fifteen minutes until the gate closes. What happened?”
Diego came up to them, looking haggard. “Francesca wanted to take three suitcases.”
“Diego wanted to take his electric guitar.”
“So we compromised. She took two suitcases, and I took the acoustic.”
León snorted and shook his head disbelievingly as they headed off towards their gate, spearheaded by Violetta who grabbed her folder with everyone’s boarding passes and passports.
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re over three hours late,” Violetta checked her phone, “We said we’d get here in plenty of time.”
“Well,” Fran started sheepishly, “We uh- made out for a bit before we compromised”
“For THREE hours?!” León asked incredulously, rounding the corner to gates A1-A7.
“Well no,” Francesca carried on – “I forgot there was a 100ml limit on liquids in hand luggage and we got held up at security.” Violetta still looked unconvinced, so Diego continued by way of explanation:
“Francesca wouldn’t throw away her toner, she says it’s too expensive and you can’t get it in Spain.”
“Right, but the security guard was being so rude about it – Diego tried flirting with her to get her to let us through, but I think that made her angrier. So I flirted with her instead and gave her an autograph and she let us through…”
Violetta couldn’t help but laugh at this, and Diego looked a little downtrodden as he mumbled to León, “Apparently, she thinks I’m too cocky and that Francesca should dump me. Stop laughing it’s not funny.”
León had been considering his own first impression of Diego and an involuntary smile had pushed its way onto his face.
As they stood in the queue to board, Francesca nudged Violetta.
“Did you manage to tell Germán in the end?”
“God no. I just said it was a conference with some producers for my next album – we were watching a film last night and the two main characters got engaged. He started choking on his popcorn and turned it off. I thought saying ‘Bueno Papá, I’m going on a joint sort-of engagement trip with the man I want to marry, my best friend, and her fiancé. We’ll be away for a week on another continent with shared hotel rooms and do not disturb signs, todo bien?’ might end in cardiac arrest.”
Fran nodded gravely, and León, looking panicked, turned to Diego, “Please tell me you haven’t mentioned it to Gregorio.”
“Fuck no.”
***
It was early evening when they touched down in Madrid’s Adolfo Suarez airport; they’d taken off close to midnight in Argentina, so due to time difference most of the next day was gone too. The balmy May air blew softly onto them as they exited the terminal together (except for Francesca who was wrestling with a revolving door that had trapped her second suitcase in one of the segments), and they started looking about at the taxi bay.
León heaved a sigh and rubbed his eyes as he moved away from the group briefly. The last time he’d stepped out of this airport, with its unusual curving roof, about five years ago, he’d been utterly miserable, confused, and felt like he was trapped in a damn telenovela as the second male lead. It was difficult to not think about that part of the trip that had been so hard for him, and for Violetta too. He looked back at the group, Francesca was pushing on one segment of the revolving door, and Violetta was pulling at the suitcase wedged in between with its wheel stuck, and Diego was pretending he didn’t know the pair of them as they yelled in unison “¡UNO, DOS, TRES, Y!”
Diego caught his eye briefly and frowned, walking over to him. “Hey, everything alright?”
“Yeah, I just- I was thinking about the last time we were here. Doesn’t bring up the best memories y’know?” León shifted his weight from one foot to the other awkwardly, trying his best to get his feelings across properly, rather than bottling them up.
“That’s part of the reason we picked here though; we’re gonna rewrite everything and get rid of the negative associations you have with stuff,” Diego put his arm around León’s shoulder as he spoke, “We were all going through it last time we were here together, but we’re different people now.”
León nodded and pulled Diego into a brief but tight hug. As Diego stepped back, he laughed, and León tilted his head questioningly. “Nothing, it’s just… I sort of get Violetta waxing poetic about your hugs all the time, I wasn’t even feeling bad, but I feel better now?”
“I told you they have healing powers.” Violetta and Francesca bounded over.
Diego rolled his eyes, “You both got the suitcase out in the end then yeah?”
“Oh so now you want to associate yourself with us? Sorry but according to what you said to that woman-” Francesca pointed to a middle-aged lady by the smoking area “-I shouldn’t be talking to you. I don’t know you and I’ve never met you in my life actually.”
“Well," Diego smiled winningly, draping his arms over the back of Fran's shoulders, "We’ll have to hurry up and get to know each other quickly – We're sharing a room tonight.” Violetta laughed at Fran huffing.
“Okay let’s move, I’ve reserved us a table at La Bien Aparecida at 21:00, and we still need to check in at the hotel first” Violetta checked her phone. “That gives us about an hour and a half to put our stuff down and get ready for dinner, all good?” Francesca and León nodded but Diego looked confused.
“Uh, I thought we were doing Mercado de la Reina tonight at 20:00?”
“But why would I reserve an earlier table on the night we fly in Diego? That doesn’t make any-”
He thrust his phone in her face with the detailed itinerary on it that she’d sent him earlier in the week, since they both knew the best spots out of the four of them. Sure enough, Mercado de la Reina was scheduled for tonight. Which gave them…not a lot of time.
“Shit.”
Violetta, too proud to admit she’d messed up a bit, grabbed León’s hand and tugged. They ran in the direction of a taxi, barely giving León enough time to grab his stuff.
Fran and Diego looked at each other. “Are we running again?” she asked him, looking utterly devastated.
“We’re running again.”
***
They were all rather sweaty by the time they reached Mercado de la Reina at 19:58; León only just managed to gasp out to the doorman, “Table…for…four please. At…agh…Eight.” Nursing a stitch, he looked pained, and Violetta was standing with her arms out in the least surreptitious way possible, so as not to get sweat patches on her white dress. Diego was facing a similar battle with his grey dress shirt.
The doorman looked thoroughly unimpressed.
“Name?”
They answered all at once, in a chorus of desperation to get inside and actually sit down.
“CavigHernanCastiVargas” is what it sounded like. The doorman raised an eyebrow at his list and beckoned the host from inside to the door. León was closest to the door and just within earshot. “There’s a Castillo at 20:15 but it’s for six?”
“It has to be them; he gave a description of four…’kids’ and they look quite young…”
“But where’s the guy who-” he checked a piece of paper “-wears too much plaid?”
“This is a restaurant though who wears plaid to a restaurant?”
León blanched at this, affronted. “Are you going to let us in or not?”
The doorman waved the perplexed-looking group inside, uttering a quick “You might have to wait a while for the rest of your group, since you’re a little early.”
“The rest of-” Violetta started, confused. “But I only booked for-”
She was cut off by Francesca clamping her hand over her mouth and León laughing over her “No no no you’re confused amor, we always planned for a group of six, remember?”
Diego spoke in a low voice “If I don’t sit down right now, I might actually collapse. If he says we booked for six we booked for six.”
***
Diego was chewing on a bread roll when it happened. Francesca and Violetta had just come out of the bathroom, and Francesca was sticking her hands insistently in Violetta’s face, talking excitedly about the hand soap and the interior decorating – Violetta was sending Camila a photo spam of them both in said toilet.
A tall dark-haired man and an almost balding man breezed past them, and Violetta frowned. That was an awfully familiar cologne she could smell… she caught the back of the man and she turned to Francesca, frowning deeper. Francesca stopping sniffing her hands.
“…What?”
Violetta gestured to their table, heart hammering in her chest. They turned to see horror creep onto León and Diego’s faces, and Violetta tugged at Francesca’s arm as they raced over to the table, towards the men who had made León drop his phone and Diego choke on his bread roll.
“¡Hija there you are! And Cami- …Francesca! Shall we sit down and eat?”